[BRARY 


[HE  UNIVERSITY 


OF  CAL  [FORNIA 


LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 


Prof.  Alexander  G.   Fits 


Short  Histories  of  the  Literatures 

of  the  World 
Edited  by  Edmund  Gosse 


A    HISTORY    OF 

SPANISH   LITERATURE 


BY 

JAMES  FITZMAURICE-KELLY 

C.    DE    LA    REAL    ACADEM1A    ESPANOLA 


NEW   YORK   AND   LONDON 

D.  APPLETON   AND   COMPANY 

1921 


COPYRIGHT,  1898, 
BY  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PQ 


Tssll 


PREFACE 


SPANISH  literature,  in  its  broadest  sense,  might  include 
writings  in  every  tongue  existing  within  the  Spanish 
dominions  ;  it  might,  at  all  events,  include  the  four  chief 
languages  of  Spain.  Asturian  and  Galician  both  pos- 
sess literatures  which  in  their  recent  developments  are 
artificial.  Basque,  the  spoiled  child  of  philologers,  has 
not  added  greatly  to  the  sum  of  the  world's  delight ;  and 
even  if  it  had,  I  should  be  incapable  of  undertaking  a 
task  which  would  belong  of  right  to  experts  like  Mr. 
Wentworth  Webster,  M.  Jules  Vinson,  and  Professor 
Schuchardt.  Catalan  is  so  singularly  rich  and  varied 
that  it  might  well  deserve  separate  treatment :  its  in- 
clusion here  would  be  as  unjustifiable  as  the  inclusion 
of  Provengal  in  a  work  dealing  with  French  literature. 
For  the  purposes  of  this  book,  minor  varieties  are 
neglected,  and  Spanish  literature  is  taken  as  referring 
solely  to  Castilian — the  speech  of  Juan  Ruiz,  Cervantes, 
Lope  de  Vega,  Tirso  de  Molina,  Quevedo,  and  Calderon. 
At  the  close  of  the  last  century,  Nicolas  Masson  de 
Morvilliers  raised  a  hubbub  by  asking  two  questions  in 
the  Encyclopedic  Methodique : — "Mais  que  doit-on  a 
1'Espagne  ?  Et  depuis  deux  siecles,  depuis  quatre,  depuis 
six,  qu'a-t  elle  fait  pour  1'Europe  ?"  I  have  attempted  an 


SSO 
i     , 


VI 


PREFACE 


answer  in  this  volume.  The  introductory  chapter  has  been 
written  to  remind  readers  that  the  great  figures  of  the 
Silver  Age — Seneca,  Lucan,  Martial,  Quintilian — were 
Spaniards  as  well  as  Romans.  It  further  aims  at  tracing 
the  stream  of  literature  from  its  Roman  fount  to  the 
channels  of  the  Gothic  period  ;  at  defining  the  limits  of 
Arabic  and  Hebrew  influence  on  Spanish  letters ;  at 
refuting  the  theory  which  assumes  the  existence  of 
immemorial  romances,  and  at  explaining  the  interaction 
between  Spanish  on  the  one  side  and  Provencal  and 
French  on  the  other.  It  has  been  thought  that  this 
treatment  saves  much  digression. 

Spanish  literature,  like  our  own,  takes  its  root  in 
French  and  in  Italian  soil ;  in  the  anonymous  epics, 
in  the  fableaux,  as  in  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  the  Cinque 
Cento  poets.  Excessive  patriotism  leads  men  of  all  lands 
to  magnify  their  literary  history  ;  yet  it  may  be  claimed 
for  Spain,  as  for  England,  that  she  has  used  her  models 
without  compromising  her  originality,  absorbing  here, 
annexing  there,  and  finally  dominating  her  first  masters. 
But  Spain's  victorious  course,  splendid  as  it  was  in  letters, 
arts,  and  arms,  was  comparatively  brief.  The  heroic  age 
of  her  literature  extends  over  some  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  from  the  accession  of  Carlos  Quinto  to  the  death  of 
Felipe  IV.  This  period  has  been  treated,  as  it  deserves, 
at  greater  length  than  any  other.  The  need  of  com- 
pression, confronting  me  at  every  page,  has  compelled 
the  omission  of  many  writers.  I  can  only  plead  that  I 
have  used  my  discretion  impartially,  and  I  trust  that  no 
really  representative  figure  will  be  found  missing. 


PREFACE  vii 

My  debts  to  predecessors  will  be  gathered  from  the 
bibliographical  appendix.  I  owe  a  very  special  acknow- 
ledgment to  my  friend  Sr.  D.  Marcelino  Menendez  y 
Pelayo,  the  most  eminent  of  Spanish  scholars  and  critics. 
If  I  have  sometimes  dissented  from  him,  I  have  done  so 
with  much  hesitation,  believing  that  any  independent  view 
is  better  than  the  mechanical  repetition  of  authoritative 
verdicts.  I  have  to  thank  Mr.  Gosse  for  the  great  care 
with  which  he  has  read  the  proofs  ;  and  to  Mr.  Henley, 
whose  interest  in  all  that  touches  Spain  is  of  long  stand- 
ing, I  am  indebted  for  much  suggestive  criticism.  For 
advice  on  some  points  of  detail,  I  am  obliged  to  Sr.  D. 
Ram6n  Menendez  Pidal,  to  Sr.  D.  Adolfo  Bonilla  y  San 
Martin,  and  to  Sr.  D.  Rafael  Altamira  y  Crevea. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    INTRODUCTORY I 

II.   THE  ANONYMOUS   AGE  (lI5O-I22O) 43 

III.    THE    AGE    OF    ALFONSO    THE    LEARNED,    AND    OF    SANCHO 

(1220-1300) 57 

IV.    THE   DIDACTIC   AGE  (1301-1400) 74 

V.    THE  AGE  OF  JUAN   II.   (1419-1454) 93 

VI.   THE    AGE     OF     ENRIQUE    IV.    AND    THE    CATHOLIC    KINGS 

(I454-I5I6) 109 

VII.    THE  AGE  OF  CARLOS  QUINTO  (1516-1556)      ....  129 

VIII.    THE   AGE  OF   FELIPE   II.   (1556-1598) l6$ 

IX.    THE  AGE  OF  LOPE  DE  VEGA   (1598-1621)       .  .          .  .211 

X.   THE    AGE    OF    FELIPE     IV.    AND     CARLOS     THE    BEWITCHED 

(I62I-I700) 275 

XI.    THE  AGE   OF  THE   BOURBONS   (l70O-l8o8)      ....  343 

XII.    THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY 363 

XIII.    CONTEMPORARY   LITERATURE 383 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 399 

INDEX 413 


A   HISTORY   OF 

SPANISH    LITERATURE 

CHAPTER   I 
INTRODUCTORY 

THE  most  ancient  monuments  of  Castilian  literature 
can  be  referred  to  no  time  later  than  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, and  they  have  been  dated  earlier  with  some 
plausibility.  As  with  men  of  Spanish  stock,  so  with 
their  letters  :  the  national  idiosyncrasy  is  emphatic — 
almost  violent.  French  literature  is  certainly  more 
exquisite,  more  brilliant ;  English  is  loftier  and  more 
varied  ;  but  in  the  capital  qualities  of  originality,  force^s^/ 
truth,  and  humour,  the  Castilian  finds  no  superior.  * 
The  Basques,  who  have  survived  innumerable  onsets^, 
(among  them,  the  ridicule  of  Rabelais  and  the  irony 
of  Cervantes),  are  held  by  some  to  be  representatives 
of  the  Stone-age  folk  who  peopled  the  east,  north-east, 
and  south  of  Spain.  This  notion  is  based  mainly  upon 
the  fact  that  all  true  Basque  names  for  cutting  instru- 
ments are  derived  from  the  word  aitz  (flint).  Howbeit, 
the  Basques  vaunt  no  literary  history  in  the  true  sense. 
The  Leloaren  Cantua  (Song  of  Leld)  has  been  accepted  as 


2  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

a  contemporary  hymn  written  in  celebration  of  a  Basque 
triumph  over  Augustus.  Its  date  is  uncertain,  and  its 
refrain  of  " Lelo"  seems  a  distorted  reminiscence  of  the 
Arabic  catchword  La  ildh  ilia  'lldh;  but  the  Leloaren 
Cantua  is  assuredly  no  older  than  the  sixteenth  century. 
A  second  performance  in  this  sort  is  the  Altobiskarko 
Cantua  (Song  of  Altobiskar).  Altobiskar  is  a  hill  near 
Roncesvalles,  where  the  Basques  are  said  to  have  de- 
feated Charlemagne  ;  and  the  song  commemorates  the 
victory.  Written  in  a  rhythm  without  fellow  in  the 
Basque  metres,  it  contains  names  like  Roland  and 
Ganelon,  which  are  in  themselves  proofs  of  French 
origin  ;  but,  as  it  has  been  widely  received  as  genuine, 
the  facts  concerning  it  must  be  told.  First  written  in 
French  (circa  1833)  by  Fran§ois  Eugene  Garay  de 
Monglave,  it  was  translated  into  very  indifferent  Basque 
by  a  native  of  Espelette  named  Louis  Duhalde,  then 
a  student  in  Paris.  The  too-renowned  Altobiskarko 
Cantua  is  therefore  a  simple  hoax  :  one  might  as  well 
attribute  Rule  Britannia  to  Boadicea.  The  conquerors 
of  Koncesvalles  wrote  no  triumphing  song :  three 
centuries  later  the  losers  immortalised  their  own  over- 
throw in  the  Chanson  de  Roland,  where  the  disaster 
is  credited  to  the  Arabs,  and  the  Basques  are  merely 
mentioned  by  the  way.  Early  in  the  twelfth  century 
there  was  written  a  Latin  Chronicle  ascribed  to  Arch- 
bishop Turpin,  an  historical  personage  who  ruled  the 
see  of  Rheims  some  two  hundred  years  before  his  false 
Chronicle  was  written.  The  opening  chapters  of  this 
fictitious  history  are  probably  due  to  an  anonymous 
Spanish  monk  cloistered  at  Santiago  de  Compostela; 
and  it  is  barely  possible  that  this  late  source  was  utilised 
by  such  modern  Basques  as  Jose"  Maria  Goizcueta,  who 


THE    BASQUE   FACTOR  3 

retouched   and  "  restored  "  the  Altobiskarko  Cantua  in 
ignorant  good  faith. 

However  that  may  prove,  no  existing  Basque  song  is 
much  more  than  three  hundred  years  old.  One  single 
Basque  of  genius,  the  Chancellor  Pero  Lopez  de  Ayala, 
shines  a  portent  in  the  literature  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury ;  and  even  so,  he  writes  in  Castilian.  He  stands 
alone,  isolated  from  his  race.  The  oldest  Basque  book, 
well  named  as  Lingua  Vasconum  Primitice,  is  a  collec- 
tion of  exceedingly  minor  verse  by  Bernard  Dechepare, 
cure  of  Saint-Michel,  near  Saint-Jean  Pied  de  Port; 
and  its  date  is  modern  (1545).  Pedro  de  Axular  is  the 
first  Basque  who  shows  any  originality  in  his  native 
tongue ;  and,  characteristically  enough,  he  deals  with 
religious  matters.  Though  he  lived  at  Sare,  in  the  Basses 
Pyr£n6es,  he  was  a  Spaniard  from  Navarre ;  and  he 
flourished  in  the  seventeenth  century  (1643).  It  is  true 
that  a  small  knot  of  second-class  Basques — the  epic  poet 
Ercilla  y  Zuniga,  and  the  fabulist  Iriarte — figure  in 
Castilian  literature;  but  the  Basque  glories  are  to  be 
sought  in  other  fields — in  such  heroic  personages  as 
Ignacio  Loyola,  and  his  mightier  disciple  Francisco 
Xavier.  Setting  aside  devotional  and  didactic  works, 
mostly  translated  from  other  tongues,  Basque  litera- 
ture is  chiefly  oral,  and  has  but  a  formal  connection 
with  the  history  of  Spanish  letters.  Within  narrow 
geographical  limits  the  Basque  language  still  thrives, 
and  on  each  slope  of  the  Pyrenees  holds  its  own  against 
forces  apparently  irresistible.  But  its  vitality  exceeds 
its  reproductive  force :  it  survives  but  does  not  multiply. 
Whatever  the  former  influence  of  Basque  on  Castilian — 
an  influence  never  great — it  has  now  ceased ;  while 
Castilian  daily  tends  to  supplant  (or,  at  least,  to  supple- 


4  SPANISH    LITERATURE 

ment)  Basque.  Spain's  later  invaders — Iberians,  Kelts, 
Phoenicians,  Greeks,  Carthaginians,  Alani,  Suevi,  Goths, 
and  Arabs — have  left  but  paltry  traces  on  the  prevailing 
form  of  Spanish  speech,  which  derives  from  Latin  by  a 
descent  more  obvious,  though  not  a  whit  more  direct, 
than  the  descent  of  French.  So  frail  is  the  partition 
which  divides  the  Latin  mother  from  her  noblest 
daughter,  that  late  in  the  sixteenth  century  Fernando 
P6rez  de  Oliva  wrote  a  treatise  that  was  at  once  Latin 
and  Spanish :  a  thing  intelligible  in  either  tongue  and 
futile  in  both,  though  held  for  praiseworthy  in  an  age 
when  the  best  poets  chose  to  string  lines  into  a  poly- 
glot rosary,  without  any  distinction  save  that  of  antic 
dexterity. 

For  our  purpose,  the  dawn  of  literature  in  Spain 
begins  with  the  Roman  conquest.  In  colonies  like 
Pax  Augusta  (Badajoz),  Caesar  Augusta  (Zaragoza),  and 
Emerita  Augusta  (M6rida),  the  Roman  influence  was 
strengthened  by  the  intermarriage  of  Roman  soldiers 
with  Spanish  women.  All  over  Spain  there  arose  the 
odiosa  cantio,  as  St.  Augustine  calls  it,  of  Spanish 
children  learning  Latin ;  and  every  school  .formed  a 
fresh  centre  of  Latin  authority.  With  their  laws,  the 
conquerors  imposed  their  speech  upon  the  broken 
tribes ;  and  these,  in  turn,  invaded  the  capital  of  Latin 
politics  and  letters.  The  breath  of  Spanish  genius 
informs  the  Latinity  of  the  Silver  Age.  Augustus 
himself  had  named  his  Spanish  freedman,  Gains  Julius 
Hyginus,  the  Chief  Keeper  of  the  Palatine  Library. 
Spanish  literary  aptitude,  showing  stronger  in  the  pro- 
digious learning  of  the  Elder  Seneca,  matures  in  the 
altisonant  rhetoric  and  violent  colouring  of  the  Younger, 
in  Lucan's  declamatory  eloquence  and  metallic  music, 


THE   SPANISH   ROMANS  5 

in  Martial's  unblushing  humour  and  brutal  cynicism, 
in  Quintilian's  luminous  judgment  and  wise  senten- 
tiousness. 

All  these  display  in  germ  the  characteristic  points 
of  strength  and  weakness  which  were  to  be  developed 
in  the  evolution  of  Spanish  literature  ;  and  their  influence 
on  letters  was  matched  by  their  countrymen's  authority 
on  affairs.  The  Spaniard  Balbus  was  the  first  barbarian 
to  reach  the  Consulship,  and  to  receive  the  honour  of 
a  public  triumph  ;  the  Spaniard  Trajan  was  the  first 
barbarian  named  Emperor,  the  first  Emperor  to  make 
the  Tigris  the  eastern  boundary  of  his  dominion,  and 
the  only  Emperor  whose  ashes  were  allowed  to  rest 
within  the  Roman  city- walls.  And  the  victory  of  the 
vanquished  was  complete  when  the  Spaniard  Hadrian, 
the  author  of  the  famous  verses — 

"  Animula  vagula  blandula, 
Hospes  comesque  carports, 
Qua  nunc  abtbis  in  loca, 
Pallidula  rigida  nudula, 
Nee,  ut  soles,  dabis  jocos?" — 

himself  an  exquisite  in  art  and  in  letters — became  the 
master  of  the  world.  Gibbon  declares  with  justice  that 
the  happiest  epoch  in  mankind's  history  is  "  that  which 
elapsed  from  the  death  of  Domitian  to  the  accession  of 
Commodus " ;  and  the  Spaniard,  accounting  Marcus 
Aurelius  as  a  son  of  C6rdoba,  vaunts  with  reasonable 
pride,  that  of  those  eighty  perfect,  golden  years,  three- 
score at  least  were  passed  beneath  the  sceptre  of  the 
Spanish  Caesars. 

Withal,  individual  success  apart,  the  Spanish  utterance 
of  Latin  teased  the  finer  ear.  Cicero  ridiculed  the  accent 


6  SPANISH    LITERATURE 

— aliquid  pingue — of  even  the  more  lettered  Spaniards 
who  reached  Rome  ;  Martial,  retired  to  his  native  Bilbi- 
lis,  shuddered  lest  he  might  let  fall  a  local  idiom  ;  and 
Quintilian,  a  sterner  purist  than  a  very  Roman,  frowned 
at  the  intrusion  of  his  native  provincialisms  upon  the 
everyday  talk  of  the  capital.  In  Rome  incorrections  of 
speech  were  found  where  least  expected.  That  Catullus 
should  jeer  at  Arrius — the  forerunner  of  a  London  type 
— in  the  matter  of  aspirates  is  natural  enough  ;  but  even 
Augustus  distressed  the  nice  grammarian.  A  fortiori, 
Hadrian  was  taunted  with  his  Spanish  solecisms.  Inno- 
vation won  the  day.  The  century  between  Livy  and 
Tacitus  shows  differences  of  style  inexplicable  by  the 
easy  theory  of  varieties  of  temperament;  and  the  two 
centuries  dividing  Tacitus  from  St.  Augustine  are 
marked  by  changes  still  more  striking.  This  is  but 
another  illustration  of  the  old  maxim,  that  as  the  speed 
of  falling  bodies  increases  with  distance,  so  literary  de- 
cadences increase  with  time. 

As  in  Italy  and  Africa,  so  in  Spain.  The  statelier  sermo 
urbanus  yielded  to  the  sermo  plebeius.  Spanish  soldiers 
had  discovered  "  the  fatal  secret  of  empire,  that  emper- 
ors could  be  made  elsewhere  than  at  Rome  " ;  no  less  fatal 
was  the  discovery  that  Latin  might  be  spoken  without 
regard  for  Roman  models.  As  the  power  of  classic  forms 
waned,  that  of  ecclesiastical  examples  grew.  Church 
Latin  of  the  fourth  century  shines  at  its  best  in  the  verse 
of  the  Christian  poet,  the  Spaniard  Prudentius :  with 
him  the  classical  rhythms  persist — as  survivals.  He 
clutches  at,  rather  than  grasps,  the  Roman  verse  tradi- 
tion, and,  though  he  has  no  rhyming  stanzas,  he  verges 
on  rhyme  in  such  performances  as  his  Hymnus  ad  Galli 
Cantum.  Throughout  the  noblest  period  of  Roman 


THE   GOTHIC   FACTOR  7 

poetry,  soldiers,  sailors,  and  illiterates  had,  in  the  versus 
saturnius,  preserved  a  native  rhythmical  system  not  quan- 
titative but  accentual ;  and  this  vulgar  metrical  method 
was  to  outlive  its  fashionable  rival.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
the  quantitative  prosody,  brought  from  Greece  by  lit- 
erary dandies,  ever  flourished  without  the  circle  of  pro- 
fessional men  of  letters.  It  is  indisputable  that  the  im- 
ported metrical  rules,  depending  on  the  power  of  vowels 
and  the  position  of  consonants,  were  gradually  super- 
seded by  looser  laws  of  syllabic  quantity  wherein  accent 
and  tonic  stress  were  the  main  factors. 

When  the  empire  fell,  Spain  became  the  easy  prey  of  * 
northern  barbarians,  who  held  the  country  by  the  sword, 
and  intermarried  but  little  with  its  people.  To  the  Goths 
Spain  owes  nothing  but  eclipse  and  ruin.  No  books,  no 
inscriptions  of  Gothic  origin  survive ;  the  Gongoristic 
letters  ascribed  to  King  Sisebut  are  not  his  work,  and 
it  is  doubtful  if  the  Goths  bequeathed  more  than  a  few 
words  to  the  Spanish  vocabulary.  The  defeat  of  Roderic 
by  Tarik  and  Musa  laid  Spain  open  to  the  Arab  rush. 
National  sentiment  was  unborn.  Witiza  and  Roderic 
were  regarded  by  Spaniards  as  men  in  Italy  and  Africa 
regarded  Totila  and  Galimar.  The  clergy  were  alienated 
from  their  Gothic  rulers.  Gothic  favourites  were  ap- 
pointed to  non-existent  dioceses  carrying  huge  revenues ; 
a  single  Goth  held  two  sees  simultaneously ;  and,  by  way 
of  balance,  Toledo  was  misgoverned  by  two  rival  Gothic 
bishops.  Harassed  by  a  severe  penal  code,  the  Jew 
hailed  the  invading  Arabs  as  a  kindred,  oriental,  cir- 
cumcised race ;  and,  with  the  heathen  slaves,  they  went 
over  to  the  conquerors.  So  obscure  is  the  history  of 
the  ensuing  years  that  it  has  been  said  that  the  one  thing 
certain  is  Roderic's  name.  Not  less  certain  is  it  that, 


8  SPANISH    LITERATURE 

within  a  brief  space,  almost  the  entire  peninsula  was 
subdued.  The  more  warlike  Spaniards, 

"  Patient  of  toil,  serene  among  alarms, 
Inflexible  in  faith,  invincible  in  arms," 

foregathered  with  Pelayo  by  the  Cave  of  Covadonga, 
near  Oviedo,  among  the  Pyrenean  chines,  which  they 
held  against  the  forces  of  the  Berber  Alkamah  and  the 
renegade  Archbishop,  Don  Opas.  "  Confident  in  the 
strength  of  their  mountains,"  says  Gibbon,  these  high- 
landers  "  were  the  last  who  submitted  to  the  arms  of 
Rome,  and  the  first  who  threw  off  the  yoke  of  the  Arabs." 
While  on  the  Asturian  hillsides  the  spirit  of  Spanish 
nationality  was  thus  nurtured  amid  convulsions,  the  less 
hardy  inhabitants  of  the  south  accepted  their  defeat. 
The  few  who  embraced  Islamism  were  despised  as 
Muladies ;  the  many,  adopting  all  save  the  religion  of 
their  masters,  were  called  Muzarabes,  just  as,  during 
the  march  of  the  reconquest,  Moors  similarly  placed  in 
Christian  provinces  were  dubbed  Mud6jares. 

The  literary  traditions  of  Seneca,  Lucan,  and  their 
brethren,  passed  through  the  hands  of  mediocrities  like 
Pomponius  Mela  and  Columella,  to  be  delivered  to  Gaius 
Vettius  Aquilinus  Juvencus,  who  gave  a  rendering  of  the 
gospels,  wherein  the  Virgilian  hexameter  is  aped  with 
a  certain  provincial  vigour.  Minor  poets,  not  lacking 
in  marmoreal  grace,  survive  in  Baron  Hiibner's  Corpus 
Inscriptionum  Latinorum.  Among  the  breed  of  learned 
churchmen  shines  the  name  of  St.  Damasus,  first  of 
Spanish  popes,  who  shows  all  his  race's  zeal  in  heresy- 
hunting  and  in  fostering  monkery.  The  saponaceous 
eloquence  that  earned  him  the  name  of  Auriscalpius 
matronarum  ("  the  Ladies'  Ear-tickler  ")  is  forgotten ;  but 


PRUDENTI  US  :    OROSIUS  9 

he  deserves  remembrance  because  of  his  achievement 
as  an  epigraphist,  and  because  he  moved  his  friend,  St. 
Jerome,  to  translate  the  Bible.  To  him  succeeds  Hosius 
of  Cordoba,  the  mentor  of  Constantine,  the  champion 
of  Athanasian  orthodoxy,  and  the  presiding  bishop  at 
the  Council  of  Nicaea,  to  whom  is  attributed  the  incor- 
poration in  the  Nicene  Creed  of  that  momentous  clause, 
"  Genitum  non  factum,  consubstantialem  Patri" 

Prudentius  follows  next,  with  that  savour  of  the  terrible 
and  agonising  which  marks  the  Spagnoletto  school  of  art; 
but  to  all  his  strength  and  sternness  he  adds  a  sweeter, 
tenderer  tone.  At  once  a  Christian,  a  Spaniard,  and  a 
Roman,  to  Prudentius  his  birthplace  is  everfelix  Tarraco 
(he  came  from  Tarragona) ;  and  he  thrills  with  pride 
when  he  boasts  that  Caesar  Augusta  gave  his  Mother- 
Church  most  martyrs.  Yet,  Christian  though  he  be,  the 
imperial  spirit  in  him  fires  at  the  thought  of  the  multitu- 
dinous tribes  welded  into  a  single  people,  and  he  plainly 
tells  you  that  a  Roman  citizen  is  as  far  above  the  brute 
barbarian  as  man  is  above  beast.  Priscillian  and  his 
fellow-sufferer  Latrocinius,  the  first  martyrs  slain  by 
Christianity  set  in  office,  were  both  clerks  of  singular 
accomplishment.  As  disciple  of  St.  Augustine,  and 
comrade  of  St.  Jerome,  Orosius  would  be  remembered, 
even  were  he  not  the  earliest  historian  of  the  world. 
Like  Prudentius,  Orosius  blends  the  passion  of  universal 
empire  with  the  fervour  of  local  sentiment.  Good, 
haughty  Spaniard  as  he  is,  he  enregisters  the  battles 
that  his  fathers  gave  for  freedom ;  he  ranks  Numancia's 
name  only  below  that  of  the  world-mother,  Rome ; 
and  his  heart  softens  towards  the  blind  barbarians, 
their  faces  turned  towards  the  light.  Cold,  austere, 
and  even  a  trifle  cynical  as  he  is,  Orosius'  pulses 


io  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

throb  at  memory  of  Caesar ;  and  he  glows  on  thinking 
that,  a  citizen  of  no  mean  city,  he  ranges  the  world 
under  Roman  jurisdiction.  And  this  vast  union  of 
diverse  races,  all  speaking  one  single  tongue,  all  re- 
cognising one  universal  law,  Orosius  calls  by  the  new 
name  of  Romania. 

Licinianus  follows,  the  Bishop  of  Cartagena  and  the 
correspondent  of  St.  Gregory  the  Great.  A  prouder 
and  more  illustrious  figure  is  that  of  St.  Isidore  of 
Seville — "  beatus  et  lumen  nosier  Isidorus."  Originality 
is  not  Isidore's  distinction,  and  the  Latin  verses  which 
pass  under  his  name  are  of  doubtful  authenticity.  But 
his  encyclopaedic  learning  is  amazing,  and  gives  him 
place  beside  Cassiodorus,  Boetius,  and  Martianus 
Capella,  among  the  greatest  teachers  of  the  West. 
St.  Braulius,  Bishop  of  Zaragoza,  lives  as  the  editor 
of  his  master  Isidore's  posthumous  writings,  and  as 
the  author  of  a  hymn  to  that  national  saint,  Millan. 
Nor  should  we  omit  the  names  of  St.  Eugenius,  a 
realist  versifier  of  the  day,  and  of  St.  Valerius,  who 
had  all  the  poetic  gifts  save  the  accomplishment  of 
verse.  Naturalised  foreigners,  like  the  Hungarian  St. 
Martin  of  Dumi,  Archbishop  of  Braga,  lent  lustre  to 
Spain  at  home.  Spaniards,  like  Claude,  Bishop  of  Turin 
and  like  Prudentius  Galindus,  Bishop  of  Troyes,  carried 
the  national  fame  abroad  :  the  first  in  writings  which 
prove  the  permanence  of  Seneca's  tradition,  the  second 
in  polemics  against  the  pantheists.  More  rarely  dowered 
was  Theodolphus,  the  Spanish  Bishop  of  Orleans,  dis- 
tinguished at  Charlemagne's  court  as  a  man  of  letters 
and  a  poet ;  nor  is  it  likely  that  Theodolphus'  name  can 
ever  be  forgotten,  for  his  exultant  hymn,  Gloria,  laus,  et 
honor,  is  sung  the  world  over  on  Palm  Sunday.  And 


THE  JEWISH   REVIVAL  n 

scarcely  less  notable  are  the  composers  of  the  noble 
Latin-Gothic  hymnal,  the  makers  of  the  Breviarum 
Gothicum  of  Lorenzana  and  of  Arevalo's  Hymnodia 
Hispanica. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that,  amid  the  tumult 
of  Gothic  supremacy  in  Spain,  literature  was  pursued — 
though  not  by  Goths — with  results  which,  if  not  splendid, 
are  at  least  unmatched  in  other  Western  lands.  Doubtless 
in  Spain,  as  elsewhere,  much  curious  learning  and  inso- 
lent ignorance  throve  jowl  by  jowl.  Like  enough,  some 
Spanish  St.  Ouen  wrote  down  Homer,  Menander,  and 
Virgil  as  three  plain  blackguards ;  like  enough,  the 
Spanish  biographer  of  some  local  St.  Bavo  confounded 
Tityrus  with  Virgil,  and  declared  that  Pisistratus'  Athenian 
contemporaries  spoke  habitually  in  Latin.  The  conceit 
of  ignorance  is  a  thing  eternal.  Withal,  from  the  age  of 
Prudentius  onward,  literature  was  sustained  in  one  or 
other  shape.  For  a  century  after  Tarik's  landing  there 
is  a  pause,  unbroken  save  for  the  Chronicle  of  the  anony- 
mous Cordoban,  too  rashly  identified  as  Isidore  Pacensis. 
The  intellectual  revival  appears,  not  among  the  Arabs, 
but  among  the  Jews  of  Cordoba  and  Toledo  ;  this  last 
the  immemorial  home  of  magic  where  the  devil  was 
reputed  to  catch  his  own  shadow.  It  was  a  devout  belief 
that  clerks  went  to  Paris  to  study  "  the  liberal  arts," 
whereas  in  Toledo  they  mastered  demonology  and  forgot 
their  morals.  Cordoba's  fame,  as  the  world's  fine  flower, 
crossed  the  German  Rhine,  and  even  reached  the  cloister 
of  Roswitha,  a  nun  who  dabbled  in  Latin  comedies.  The 
achievements  of  Spanish  Jews  and  Spanish  Arabs  call  for 
separate  treatises.  Here  it  must  suffice  to  say  that  the 
roll  contains  names  mighty  as  that  of  the  Jewish  poet 
and  philosopher  Ibn  Gebirol  or  Avicebron  (d.  ?  1070), 


12  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

whom  Duns  Scotus  acknowledges  as  his  master ;  and 
that  of  Judah  ben  Samuel  the  Levite  (b.  1086),  whom 
Heine  celebrates  in  the  Roman-zero: 

"  Rein  und  ivahrhaft,  sender  Makel 
War  sein  Lied,  wie  seine  Seele." 

In  one  sense,  if  we  choose  to  fasten  on  his  favourite 
trick  of  closing  a  Hebrew  stanza  with  a  romance  line, 
Judah  ben  Samuel  the  Levite  may  be  accounted  the 
earliest  of  known  experimentalists  in  Spanish  verse  ;  and 
an  Arab  poet  of  Spanish  descent,  Ibn  Hazm,  anticipated 
the  Catalan,  Auzi'as  March,  by  founding  a  school  of 
poetry,  at  once  mystic  and  amorous. 

But  the  Spanish  Jews  and  Spanish  Arabs  gained  their 
chief  distinction  in  philosophy.  Of  these  are  Ibn  Bajjah 
or  Avempace  (d.  1138),  the  opponent  of  al-Gazali  and  his 
mystico-sceptical  method ;  and  Abu  Bakr  ibn  al-Tufail 
(1116-85),  the  author  of  a  neo  -  platonic,  pantheistic 
romance  entitled  Risdlat  Haiy  ibn  Yaksdn,  of  which  the 
main  thesis  is  that  religious  and  philosophic  truth  are  but 
two  forms  of  the  same  thing.  Muhammad  ibn  Ahmad 
ibn  Rushd  (1126-98),  best  known  as  Averroes,  taught 
the  doctrine  of  the  universal  nature  and  unity  of  the 
human  intellect,  accounting  for  individual  inequalities 
by  a  fantastic  theory  of  stages  of  illumination.  Arab 
though  he  was,  Averroes  was  more  reverenced  by  Jews 
than  by  men  of  his  own  race  ;  and  his  permanent  vogue 
is  proved  by  the  fact  that  Columbus  cites  him  three 
centuries  afterwards,  while  his  teachings  prevailed  in 
the  University  of  Padua  as  late  as  Luther's  time.  A 
more  august  name  is  that  of  "the  Spanish  Aristotle," 
Moses  ben  Maimon  or  Maimonides  (1135-1204),  the 
greatest  of  European  Jews,  the  intellectual  father,  so 


MAIMONIDES  13 

to  say,  of  Albertus  Magnus  and  St.  Thomas  of  Aquin. 
Born  at  C6rdoba,  Maimonides  drifted  to  Cairo,  whereN 
he  became  chief  rabbi  of  the  synagogue,  and  served 
as  Saladin's  physician,  having  refused  a  like  post  in 
the  household  of  Richard  the  Lion-hearted.  It  is 
doubtful  if  Maimonides  was  a  Jew  at  heart ;  it  is  un- 
questioned that  at  one  time  he  conformed  outwardly 
to  Muhammadanism.  A  stinging  epigram  summarises 
his  achievement  by  saying  that  he  philosophised  the 
Talmud  and  talmudised  philosophy.  It  is,  of  course, 
absurd  to  suppose  that  his  critical  faculty  could  accept 
the  childish  legends  of  the  Haggadah,  wherein  rabbis 
manifold  report  that  the  lion  fears  the  cock's  crow, 
that  the  salamander  quenches  fire,  and  other  incredible 
puerilities.  In  his  Yad  ha-Hazakah  (The  Strong  Hand) 
Maimonides  seeks  to  purge  the  Talmud  of  its  pilpulim  or 
casuistic  commentaries,  and  to  make  the  book  a  sufficient 
guide  for  practical  life  rather  than  to  leave  it  a  dust-heap 
for  intellectual  scavengers.  Hence  he  tends  to  a  rational- 
istic interpretation  of  Scriptural  records.  Direct  com- 
munion with  the  Deity,  miracles,  prophetic  gifts,  are 
not  so  much  denied  as  explained  away  by  means  of 
a  symbolic  exegesis,  infinitely  subtle  and  imaginative. 
Spanish  and  African  rabbis  received  the  new  teaching 
with  docility,  and  in  his  own  lifetime  Maimonides' 
success  was  absolute.  A  certain  section  of  his  followers 
carried  the  cautious  rationalism  of  the  master  to  extremi- 
ties, and  thus  produced  the  inevitable  reaction  of  the 
Kabbala  with  its  apparatus  of  elaborate  extravagances. 
This  reaction  was  headed  by  another  Spaniard,  the 
Catalan  mystic,  Bonastruc  de  Portas  or  Moses  ben 
Nahman  (1195-1270);  and  the  relation  of  the  two 
leaders  is  exemplified  by  the  rabbinical  legend  which 


I4  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

tells  that  the  soul  of  each  sprang  from  Adam's  head  : 
Maimonides,  from  the  left  curl,  which  typifies  severity 
of  judgment;  Moses  ben  Nahman  from  the  right,  which 
symbolises  tenderness  and  mercy. 

On  literature  the  pretended  "Arab  influence,"  if  it 
exist  at  all,  is  nowise  comparable  to  that  of  the  Spanish 
Jews,  who  can  boast  that  Judah  ben  Samuel  the  Levite 
lives  as  one  of  Dante's  masters.  Judah  ranks  among 
the  great  immortals  of  the  world,  and  no  Arab  is  fit  to 
loosen  the  thong  of  his  sandal.  But  it  might  very  well 
befall  a  second-rate  man,  favoured  by  fortune  and  occa- 
sion, to  head  a  literary  revolution.  It  was  not  the  case 
in  Spain.  The  innumerable  Spanish-Arab  poets,  vul- 
garised by  the  industry  of  Schack  and  interpreted  by  the 
genius  of  Valera,  are  not  merely  incomprehensible  to  us 
here  and  now  ;  they  were  enigmas  to  most  contemporary 
Arabs,  who  were  necessarily  ignorant  of  what  was,  to  all 
purposes,  a  dead  language  —  the  elaborate  technical 
vocabulary  of  Arabic  verse.  If  their  own  countrymen 
failed  to  understand  these  poets,  it  would  be  surprising 
had  their  stilted  artifice  filtered  into  Castilian.  It  is  un- 
scientific, and  almost  unreasonable,  to  assume  that  what 
baffles  the  greatest  Arabists  of  to-day  was  plain  to  a  wan- 
dering mummer  a  thousand,  or  even  six  hundred,  years 
ago.  There  is,  however,  a  widespread  belief  that  the 
metrical  form  of  the  Castilian  romance  (a  simple  lyrico- 
narrative  poem  in  octosyllabic  assonants)  derives  from 
Arabic  models.  This  theory  is  as  untenable  as  that  which 
attributed  Prove^al  rhythms  to  Arab  singers.  No  less 
erroneous  is  the  idea  that  the  entire  assonantic  system  is 
an  Arab  invention.  Not  only  are  assonants  common 
to  all  Romance  languages  ;  they  exist  in  Latin  hymns 
composed  centuries  before  Muhammad's  birth,  and 


THE  ARAB   FALLACY  15 

therefore  long  before  any  Arab  reached  Europe.  It 
is  significant  that  no  Arabist  believes  the  legend  of  the 
"  Arab  influence  "  ;  for  Arabists  are  not  more  given 
than  other  specialists  to  belittling  the  importance  of 
their  subject. 

In  sober  truth,  this  Arab  myth  is  but  a  bad  dream 
of  yesterday,  a  nightmare  following  upon  an  un- 
digested perusal  of  the  Thousand  and  One  Nights. 
Thanks  to  Galland,  Cardonne,  and  Herbelot,  the 
notion  became  general  that  the  Arabs  were  the  great 
creative  force  of  fiction.  To  father  Spanish  romances 
and  Provencal  trobas  upon  them  is  a  mere  freak  of 
fancy.  The  tacit  basis  of  this  theory  is  that  the  Span- 
iards took  a  rare  interest  in  the  intellectual  side  of  Arab 
life ;  but  the  assumption  is  not  justified  by  evidence. 
Save  in  a  casual  passage,  as  that  in  the  Cronica  General 
on  the  capture  of  Valencia,  the  Castilian  historians 
steadily  ignore  their  Arab  rivals.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  is  a  class  of  romances  fronterizos  (border  ballads), 
such  as  that  on  the  loss  of  Alhama,  which  is  based  on 
Arabic  legends ;  and  at  least  one  such  ballad,  that  of 
Abenamar,  may  be  the  work  of  a  Spanish-speaking  Moor. 
But  these1  are  isolated  cases,  are  exceptional  solely  as 
regards  the  source  of  the  subject,  and  nowise  differ  in 
form  from  the  two  thousand  other  ballads  of  the  Roman- 
ceros.  To  find  a  case  of  real  imitation  we  must  pass  to  the 
fifteenth  century,  when  that  learned  lyrist,  the  Marques 
de  Santillana,  deliberately  experiments  in  the  measures 
of  an  Arab  zajal,  a  performance  matched  by  a  surviving 
fragment  due  to  an  anonymous  poet  in  the  Cancionero  de 
Linares.  These  are  metrical  audacities,  resembling  the 
revival  of  French  ballades  and  rondeaux  by  artificers  like 
Mr.  Dobson,  Mr.  Gosse,  and  Mr.  Henley  in  our  own  day. 


1 6  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

On  the  strength  of  two  unique  modern  examples  in  the 
history  of  Castilian  verse,  it  would  be  unjustifiable  to 
believe,  in  the  teeth  of  all  other  evidence,  that  simple 
strollers  intuitively  assimilated  rhythms  whose  intricacy 
bewilders  the  best  experts.  This  is  not  to  say  that 
Arabic  popular  poetry  had  no  influence  on  such  popular 
Spanish  verse  as  the  capias,  of  which  some  are  appa- 
rently but  translations  of  Arabic  songs.  That  is  an 
entirely  different  thesis  ;  for  we  are  concerned  here  with 
literature  to  which  the  halting  coplas  can  scarcely  be  said 
to  belong. 

The  "  Arab  influence  "  is  to  be  sought  elsewhere — in 
the  diffusion  of  the  Eastern  apologue,  morality,  or  maxim, 
deriving  from  the  Sanskrit.  M.  Bedier  argues  with 
extraordinary  force,  ingenuity,  and  learning,  against  the 
universal  Eastern  descent  of  the  French  fabliaux.  How- 
ever that  be,  the  immediate  Arabic  origin  of  such  a  col- 
lection as  the  Disciplina  Clericalis  of  Petrus  Alfonsus 
(printed,  in  part,  as  the  Fables  of  Alfonce,  by  Caxton, 
1483,  in  The  Book  of  the  subtyl  Historyes  and  Fables  of 
Esope),  is  as  undoubted  as  the  source  of  the  apologue 
grafted  on  Castilian  by  Don  Juan  Manuel,  or  as  the 
derivation  of  the  maxims  of  Rabbi  Sem  Tom  of  Carri6n. 
To  this  extent,  in  common  with  the  rest  of  Europe, 
Spain  owes  the  Arabs  a  debt  which  her  picaresque 
novels  and  comedies  have  more  than  paid  ;  but  here 
again  the  Arab  acts  as  a  mere  middleman,  taking  the 
story  of  Kalilah  and  Dimna  from  the  Sanskrit  through 
the  Pehlev!  version,  and  then  passing  it  by  way  of  Spain 
to  the  rest  of  the  Continent.  Nor  should  it  be  over- 
looked that  Spaniards,  disguised  as  Arabs,  shared  in 
the  work  of  interpretation. 

It  is  less  easy  to  determine  the  extent  to  which  col- 


THE  ARABIC  INFLUENCE  17 

loquial  Arabic  was  used  in  Spain.  Patriots  would  per- 
suade you  that  the  Arabs  brought  nothing  to  the  stock 
of  general  culture,  and  the  more  thoroughgoing  insist 
that  the  Spaniards  lent  more  than  they  borrowed.  But 
the  point  may  be  pressed  too  far.  It  must  be  admitted 
that  Arabic  had  a  vogue,  though  perhaps  not  a  vogue 
as  wide  as  might  be  gathered  from  the  testimony  of 
Paulus  Alvarus  Cordubiensis,  whose  Indiculus  Lumi- 
nosus,  a  work  of  the  ninth  century,  taunts  the  writer's 
countrymen  with  neglecting  their  ancient  tongue  for 
Hebrew  and  Arabic  technicalities.  The  ethnic  influ- 
ence of  the  Arabs  is  still  obvious  in  Granada  and 
other  southern  towns  ;  and  intermarriages,  tending  to 
strengthen  the  sway  of  the  victor's  speech,  were  common 
from  the  outset,  when  Roderic's  widow,  Egilona,  wedded 
Abd  al-Aziz,  son  of  Musa,  her  dead  husband's  con- 
queror. An  Alfonso  of  Le6n  espoused  the  daughter  of 
Abd  Allah,  Emir  of  Toledo  ;  and  an  Alfonso  of  Castile 
took  to  wife  the  daughter  of  an  Emir  of  Seville.  "  The 
wedding,  which  displeased  God,"  of  Alfonso  the  Fifth's 
sister  with  an  Arab  (some  say  with  al-Mansur),  is  sung  in 
a  famous  romance  inspired  by  the  Cronica  General. 

In  official  charters,  as  early  as  804,  Arabic  words  find 
place.  A  local  disuse  of  Latin  is  proved  by  the  fact 
that  in  this  ninth  century  the  Bishop  of  Seville  found  it 
needful  to  render  the  Bible  into  Arabic  for  the  use  of 
Muzdrabes  ;  and  still  stronger  evidence  of  the  low  estate 
of  Latin  is  afforded  by  an  Arabic  version  of  canonical 
decrees.  It  follows  that  some  among  the  very  clergy 
read  Arabic  more  easily  than  they  read  Latin.  Jewish 
poets,  like  Avicebron  and  Judah  ben  Samuel  the  Levite, 
sometimes  composed  in  Arabic  rather  than  in  their  native 
Hebrew  ;  and  it  is  almost  certain  that  the  lays  of  the 


i8  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Arab  rdwis  radically  modified  the  structure  of  Hebrew 
verse.  Apart  from  the  evidence  of  Paulus  Alvarus  Cor- 
dubiensis,  St.  Eulogius  deposes  that  certain  Christians 
—he  mentions  Isaac  the  Martyr  by  name — spoke  Arabic 
to  perfection.  Nor  can  it  be  pleaded  that  this  zeal  was 
invariably  due  to  official  pressure  :  on  the  contrary,  a 
caliph  went  the  length  of  forbidding  Spanish  Jews  and 
Christians  to  learn  Arabic.  Neither  did  the  fashion  die 
soon  :  long  after  the  Arab  predominance  was  shaken, 
Arabic  was  the  modish  tongue.  Alvar  Faftez,  the  Cid's 
right  hand,  is  detected  signing  his  name  in  Arabic 
characters.  The  Christian  dinar,  Arabic  in  form  and 
superscription,  was  invented  to  combat  the  Almoravide 
dinar,  which  rivalled  the  popularity  of  the  Constanti- 
nople besant ;  and  as  late  as  the  thirteenth  century 
Spanish  coins  were  struck  with  Arabic  symbols  on  the 
reverse  side. 

Yet,  even  so,  the  rude  Latin  of  the  unconquered  north 
remained  well-nigh  intact.  Save  in  isolated  centres,  it 
was  spoken  by  countless  Christians  and  by  the  Spaniards 
who  had  escaped  to  the  African  province  of  Tingitana. 
Vast  deduction  must  be  made  from  the  jeremiads  of 
Paulus  Alvarus  Cordubiensis.  As  he  bewails  the  time 
wasted  on  Hebrew  and  Arabic  by  Spaniards,  so  does 
Avicebron  lament  the  use  of  Arabic  and  Romance  by 
Jews.  "  One  party  speaks  Idumean  (Romance),  the  other 
the  tongue  of  Kedar  (Arabic)."  If  the  Arab  flood  ran 
high,  the  ebb  was  no  less  strong.  Arabs  tended  more 
and  more  to  ape  the  dress,  the  arms,  the  customs  of  the 
Spaniards  ;  and  the  Castilian-speaking  Arab — the  moro 
latinado — multiplied  prodigiously.  No  small  proportion 
of  Arab  writers — Ibn  Hazm,  for  example — was  made  up 
of  sons  or  grandsons  of  Spaniards,  not  unacquainted 


ALJAMfA  19 

with  their  fathers'  speech.  When  Archbishop  Raimundo 
founded  his  College  of  Translators  at  Toledo,  where 
Dominicus  Gundisalvi  collaborated  with  the  convert 
Abraham  ben  David  (Johannes  Hispalensis),  it  might 
have  seemed  that  the  preservation  of  Arabic  and  Hebrew 
was  secure.  There  and  then,  there  could  not  have 
occurred  such  a  blunder  as  that  immortal  one  of  the 
Capuchin,  Henricus  Seynensis,  who  lives  eternal  by  mis- 
taking the  Talmud — "  Rabbi  Talmud  " — for  a  man.  But 
no  Arab  work  endures.  And  as  with  Arab  philosophy 
in  Spain,  so  with  the  Arabic  language  :  its  soul  was 
required  of  it.  Hebrew,  indeed,  was  not  forgotten  ; 
and  for  Arabic,  a  revival  might  be  expected  during  the 
Crusades.  Yet  in  all  Europe,  outside  Spain,  but  three 
isolated  Arabists  of  that  time  are  known — William  of 
Tyre,  Philip  of  Tripoli,  and  Adelard  of  Bath  ;  and  in 
Spain  itself,  when  Boabdil  surrendered  in  1492,  the  tide 
had  run  so  low  that  not  a  thousand  Arabs  in  Granada 
could  speak  their  native  tongue.  Nearly  two  centuries 
before  (in  1311-12)  a  council  under  Pope  Clement  V. 
advised  the  establishment  of  Arabic  chairs  in  the  univer- 
sities of  Salamanca,  Bologna,  Paris,  and  Oxford.  Save 
at  Bologna,  the  counsel  was  ignored ;  and  in  Spain, 
where  it  had  once  swaggered  with  airs  official,  Arabic 
almost  perished  out  of  use. 

Save  a  group  of  technical  words,  the  sole  literary  legacy 
bequeathed  to  Spain  by  the  Arabs  was  their  alphabet. 
This  they  used  in  writing  Castilian,  calling  their  transcrip- 
tion aljamia  (a/ami  =  foreign),  which  was  the  original 
name  of  the  broken  Latin  spoken  by  the  Muzarabes. 
First  introduced  in  legal  documents,  the  practice  was 
prudently  continued  during  the  reconquest,  and,  besides 
its  secrecy,  was  further  recommended  by  the  fact  that  a 


20  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

special  sanctity  attaches  to  Arabic  characters.  But  the 
peculiarity  of  aljamia  is  that  it  begot  a  literature  of  its 
own,  though,  naturally  enough,  a  literature  modelled  on 
the  Spanish.  Its  best  production  is  the  Poema  de  Yusuf; 
and  it  may  be  noted  that  this,  like  its  much  later  fellow, 
La  Alabama  de  Mahoma  (The  Praise  of  Muhammad),  is 
in  the  metre  of  the  old  Spanish  "  clerkly  poems"  (pocslas 
de  clereda).  So  also  the  Aragonese  Morisco,  Muhammad 
Rabadan,  writes  his  cyclic  poem  in  Spanish  octosyllabics; 
and  in  his  successors  there  are  hendecasyllabics  mani- 
festly imitated  from  a  characteristic  Galician  measure 
(de  gaita  gallega).  The  subjects  of  the  textos  aljamiados 
are  frankly  conveyed  from  Western  sources  :  the  Com- 
pilation of  Alexander,  an  orientalised  version  of  the 
French  ;  the  History  of  the  Loves  of  Paris  and  Viana,  a 
translation  from  the  Provencal;  and  the  Maid  of  Arca- 
yona,  based  on  the  Spanish  poem  Apolonio.  In  the 
/Cancionero  de  Baena  appears  Mahomat-el-Xartosse,  with- 
/  out  his  turban,  as  a  full-fledged  Spanish  poet ;  and  the 
old  tradition  of  servility  is  continued  by  an  anonymous 
\  refugee  in  Tunis,  who  shows  himself  an  authority  on  the 
\  plays  and  the  lyric  verse  of  Lope  de  Vega. 

It  is  therefore  erroneous  to  suppose  that  the  northern 
Spaniards  on  their  southward  march  fell  in  with  nume- 
rous kinsmen,  of  wider  culture  and  of  a  higher  civilisa- 
tion, whose  everyday  speech  was  unintelligible  to  them, 
and  who  prayed  to  Christ  in  the  tongue  of  Muhammad. 
Such  cases  may  have  occurred,  but  as  the  rarest  excep- 
tions. Not  less  unfounded  is  the  theory  that  Castilian 
is  a  fusion  of  southern  academic  Arabic  with  barbarous 
northern  Latin.  In  southern  Spain  Latin  persisted,  as 
Greek,  Syriac,  and  Coptic  persisted  in  other  provinces 
of  the  Caliphate ;  and  in  the  school  founded  at  Cordoba 


THE  ARAB  DECADENCE  21 

by  the  Abbot  Spera-in-Deo,  Livy,  Cicero,  Virgil,  Quin- 
tilian,  and  Demosthenes  were  read  as  assiduously  as 
Sallust,  Horace,  and  Terence  were  studied  in  the  northern 
provinces.  Granting  that  Latin  was  for  a  while  so  much 
neglected  that  it  was  necessary  to  translate  the  Bible 
into  Arabic,  it  is  also  true  that  Arabic  grew  so  forgotten* 
that  Peter  the  Venerable  was  forced  to  translate  the  ^> 
Ku'ran  for  the  benefit  of  clerks.  Lastly,  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  variety  of  Romance  which  finally 
prevailed  in  Spain  was  not  the  speech  of  the  northern 
highlanders,  but  that  of  the  Muzarabes  of  the  south  and 
the  centre.  Long  before  "the  sword  of  Pelagius  had 
been  transformed  into  the  sceptre  of  the  Catholic  kings," 
the  linguistic  triumph  of  the  south  was  achieved.  The 
hazard  of  war  might  have  yielded  another  issue  ;  and 
to  adopt  another  celebrated  phrase  of  Gibbon's,  but  for 
the  Cid  and  his  successors,  the  Ku'ran  might  now  be 
taught  in  the  schools  of  Salamanca,  and  her  pulpits 
might  demonstrate  to  a  circumcised  people  the  sanctity 
and  truth  of  the  revelation  of  Muhammad.  As  it  chanced, 
Arabic  was  rebuffed,  and  the  Latin  speech  (or  Romance) 
survived  in  its  principal  varieties  of  Castilian,  Galician, 
Catalan,  and  bable  (Asturian). 

Gallic  Latin  had  already  bifurcated  into  the  langue 
cToni  and  the  langue  d'oc,  though  these  names  were  not 
applied  to  the  varieties  till  near  the  close  of  the  twelfth 
century.  Two  hundred  years  before  Roderic's  over- 
throw a  Spanish  horde  raided  the  south-west  of  France, 
and,  in  the  corner  south  of  the  Adour,  reimposed 
a  tongue  which  Latin  had  almost  entirely  supplanted, 
and  which  lingered  solely  in  the  Basque  Provinces  and 
in  Navarre.  In  the  eighth  century  this  Basque  invasion 
was  avenged.  The  Spaniards,  concentrating  in  the 


22  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

north,  vacated  the  eastern  provinces,  which  were  there- 
upon occupied  by  the  Roussillonais,  who,  spreading  as  far 
south  as  Valencia,  and  as  far  east  as  the  Balearic  Islands, 
gave  eastern  Spain  a  new  language.  Deriving  from  the 
langue  d'oc,  Catalan  divides  into  pld  Catald  and  Lemosi— 
the  common  speech  and  the  literary  tongue.  Vidal  de 
Besalu  calls  his  own  Provencal  language  limosina  or 
Umozi,  and  the  name,  taken  from  his  popular  treatise 
Dreita  Maneira  de  Trobar,  was  at  first  limited  to  literary 
Provencal  ;  but  endless  confusion  arises  from  the  fact 
that  when  Catalans  took  to  composing,  their  poems 
were  likewise  said  to  be  written  in  lengua  lemosina. 

The  Galician,  akin  to  Portuguese,  though  free  from 
the  nasal  element  grafted  on  the  latter  by  Burgundians, 
is  held  by  some  for  the  oldest — though  clearly  not  the 
most  virile — form  of  Peninsular  Romance.  It  was  at 
least  the  first  to  ripen,  and,  under  Prove^al  guidance, 
Galician  verse  acquired  the  flexibility  needed  for  metrical 
effects  long  before  Castilian  ;  so  that  Castilian  court- 
poets,  ambitious  of  finer  rhythmical  results,  were  driven 
to  use  Galician,  which  is  strongly  represented  in  the 
Cancionero  de  Baena,  and  boasts  an  earlier  masterpiece 
in  Alfonso  the  Learned's  Cantigas  de  Santa  Maria,  re- 
cently edited,  as  it  deserved,  after  six  centuries  of  wait- 
ing, by  that  admirable  scholar  the  Marques  de  Valmar. 
Galician,  now  little  more  than  a  simple  dialect,  is  artifici- 
ally kept  alive  by  the  efforts  of  patriotic  minor  poets ; 
but  its  literary  influence  is  extinct,  and  the  distinguished 
figures  of  the  province,  as  Dona  Emilia  Pardo  Bazan, 
naturally  seek  a  larger  audience  by  writing  in  Castilian. 
So,  too,  bable  is  but  another  dialect  of  little  account, 
though  a  poet  of  considerable  charm,  Teodoro  Cuesta 
(1829-95),  has  written  in  it  verses  which  his  own  loyal 


THE  TRIUMPH   OF  CASTILIAN  23 

people  will  not  willingly  let  die.  The  classification  of 
other  characteristic  sub-genera — Andalucian,  Aragonese, 
Leonese — belongs  to  philology,  and  would  be,  in  any 
event,  out  of  place  in  the  history  of  a  literature  to  which, 
unlike  Catalan  and  unlike  Galician,  they  have  added 
nothing  of  importance.  What  befell  in  Italy  and  France 
befell  in  Spain.  Partly  through  political  causes,  partly 
by  force  of  superior  culture,  the  language  of  a  single 
centre  ousted  its  rivals.  As  France  takes  its  speech 
from  Paris  and  the  lie  de  France,  as  Florence  domi- 
nates Italy,  so  Castile  dictates  her  language  to  all  the 
Spains.  The  dominant  type,  then,  of  Spanish  is  the 
Castilian,  which,  as  the  most  potent  form,  has  outlived 
its  brethren,  and,  with  trifling  variations,  now  extends, 
not  only  over  Spain,  but  as  far  west  as  Lima  and  Val- 
paraiso, and  as  far  east  as  the  Philippine  Islands  :  in 
effect,  "from  China  to  Peru."  And  the  Castilian  of 
to-day  differs  little  from  the  Castilian  of  the  earliest 
monuments. 

The  first  allusion  to  any  distinct  variety  of  Romance 
is  found  in  the  life  of  a  certain  St.  Mummolin  who 
was  Bishop  of  Noyen,  succeeding  St.  Eloi  in  659. 
A  reference  to  the  Spanish  type  of  Romance  is  found 
as  far  back  as  734 ;  but  the  authenticity  of  the  docu- 
ment is  very  doubtful.  The  breaking-up  of  Latin  in 
Spain  is  certainly  observable  in  Bishop  Odoor's  will 
under  the  date  of  747.  The  celebrated  Strasburg  Oaths, 
the  oldest  of  Romance  instruments,  belong  to  the  year 
842  ;  and,  in  an  edict  of  844,  Charles  the  Bald  mentions, 
as  a  thing  apart,  "  the  customary  language " — usitato 
vocabulo — of  the  Spaniards.  There  is,  however,  no  exist- 
ing Spanish  manuscript  so  ancient,  nor  is  there  any 
monument  as  old,  as  the  Italian  Carta  di  Capua  (960). 
3 


24  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

The  British  Museum  contains  a  curious  codex  from  the 
Convent  of  Santo  Domingo  de  Silos,  on  the  margin  of 
which  a  contemporary  has  written  the  vernacuhr  equiva- 
lent of  some  four  hundred  Latin  words  ;  but  this  is  no 
earlier  than  the  eleventh  century.  The  Charter  called 
the  Fuero  de  Avttts  of  1155  (which  is  in  bable  or  Asturian, 
not  Castilian),  has  long  passed  for  the  oldest  example  of 
Spanish,  on  the  joint  and  several  authority  of  Gonzalez 
Llanos,  Ticknor,  and  Gayangos ;  but  Fernandez-Guerra 
y  Orbe  has  proved  it  to  be  a  forgery  of  much  later 
date. 

These  intricate  questions  of  authority  and  ascription 
may  well  be  left  unsettled,  for  legal  documents  are  but 
the  dry  bones  of  letters.  Castilian  literature  dates  roughly 
from  the  twelfth  century.  Though  no  Castilian  docu- 
ment of  extent  can  be  referred  to  that  period,  the  Misterio 
de  los  Reyes  Magos  (The  Mystery  of  the  Magian  Kings) 
and  the  group  of  cantares  called  the  Poema  del  Cid  can 
scarcely  belong  to  any  later  time.  These,  probably,  are 
the  jetsam  of  a  cargo  of  literature  which  has  foundered. 
It  is  unlikely  that  the  two  most  ancient  compositions  in 
Castilian  verse  should  be  precisely  the  two  preserved 
to  us,  and  it  is  manifest  that  the  epic  as  set  forth  in 
the  Poema  del  Cid  could  not  have  been  a  first  effort. 
Doubtless  there  were  other  older,  shorter  songs  or 
cantares  on  the  Cid's  prowess ;  there  unquestionably 
were  songs  upon  Bernaldo  de  Carpio  and  upon  the 
Infantes  de  Lara  which  are  rudely  preserved  in  asso- 
nantic  prose  passages  of  the  Cronica  General.  An  inge- 
nious, deceptive  theory  lays  it  down  that  the  epic  is  but 
an  amalgam  of  cantilenas,  or  short  lyrics  in  the  vulgar 
tongue.  At  most  this  is  a  pious  opinion. 

To  judge  by  the  analogy  of  other  literatures,  it  is  safe 


THE  MYTHIC  CANTILENAS  25 

to  say  that  as  verse  always  precedes  prose  (just  as  man 
feels  before  he  reasons),  so  the  epic  everywhere  precedes 
the  lyric  form,  with  the  possible  exception  of  hymns. 
The  Poema  del  Cid,  for  instance,  shows  no  trace  of 
lyrical  descent ;  and  it  is  far  likelier  that  the  many 
surviving  romances  or  ballads  on  the  Cid  are  detached 
fragments  of  an  epic,  than  that  the  epic  should  be  a 
+astiche  of  ballads  put  together  nobody  knows  why, 
when,  where,  how,  or  by  whom.  But  in  any  case  the 
cantilena  theory  is  idle  ;  for,  since  no  cantilenas  exist, 
no  evidence  is — or  can  be — forthcoming  to  eke  out  an 
attractive  but  unconvincing  thesis.  In  default  of  testi- 
mony and  of  intrinsic  probability,  the  theory  depends 
solely  on  bold  assertion,  and  it  suffices  to  say  that  the 
cantilena  hypothesis  is  now  abandoned  by  all  save  a 
knot  of  fanatical  partisans. 

The  exploits  of  the  battle-field  would,  in  all  likeli- 
hood, be  the  first  subjects  of  song ;  and  the  earliest 
singers  of  these  deeds — gesta  —  would  appear  in  the 
chieftain's  household.  They  sang  to  cheer  the  free- 
booters on  the  line  of  march,  and  a  successful  foray 
was  commemorated  in  some  war-song  like  Dinas  Vawr's  : 

"Ednyfed,  King  of  Dyfed, 
His  head  was  borne  before  us; 
His  wine  and  beasts  stipplied  our  feasts, 
And  his  overthrow  our  chorus." 

Soon  the  separation  between  combatants  and  singers 
became  absolute:  the  division  has  been  effected  in  the 
interval  which  divides  the  Iliad  from  the  Odyssey. 
Achilles  himself  sings  the  heroes'  glories ;  in  the 
Odyssey  the  aotSo?  or  professional  singer  appears,  to  be 
succeeded  by  the  rhapsode.  Slowly  there  evolve  in 
Spain,  as  elsewhere,  two  classes  of  artists  known  as 


26  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

trovadores  and  juglares.  The  trovadores  are  generally 
authors ;  the  juglares  are  mere  executants — singers, 
declaimers,  mimes,  or  simple  mountebanks.  Of  these 
lowlier  performers  one  type  has  been  immortalised  in 
M.  Anatole  France's  Le  Jongleur  de  Notre  Dame,  a 
beautiful  re-setting  of  the  old  story  of  El  Tumbeor.  But 
between  trovadores  and  juglares  it  is  not  possible  to 
draw  a  hard-and-fast  line  :  their  functions  intermingled. 
Some  few  trovadores  anticipated  Wagner  by  eight  or 
nine  centuries,  composing  their  own  music-drama  on 
a  lesser  scale.  In  cases  of  special  endowment,  the 
composer  of  words  and  music  delivered  them  to  the 
audience. 

Subdivisions  abounded.  There  were  the  juglares  or 
singing-actors,  the  remendadores  or  mimes,  the  cazurros  or 
mutes  with  duties  undefined,  resembling  those  of  the 
intelligent  "super."  Gifted  juglares  at  whiles  produced 
original  work ;  a  trovador  out  of  luck  sank  to  delivering 
the  lines  of  his  happier  rivals ;  and  a  stray  remendador 
struggled  into  success  as  a  juglar.  There  were  juglares 
de  boca  (reciters)  and  juglares  de  ptftola  (musicians). 
Even  an  official  label  may  deceive ;  thus  a  "  Gomez 
trovador"  is  denoted  in  the  year  1197,  but  the  likeli- 
hood is  that  he  was  a  mere  juglar.  The  normal  rule 
was  that  the  juglar  recited  the  trovador 's  verses  ;  but, 
as  already  said,  an  occasional  trovador  (Alfonso  Alvarez 
de  Villasandino,  at  Seville,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  is 
a  case  in  point)  would  declaim  his  own  ballad.  In 
the  juglar' s  hands  the  original  was  cut  or  padded  to 
suit  the  hearers'  taste.  He  subordinated  the  verses  to 
the  music,  and  gave  them  maimed,  or  arabesqued  with 
estribillos  (refrains),  to  fit  a  popular  air.  The  mono- 
tonous repetition  of  epithet  and  clause,  common  to  all 


THE  JUGLAR  27 

early  verse,  is  used  to  lessen  the  strain  on  the  juglar's 
memory.  The  commonest  arrangement  was  that  the 
juglar  de  boca  sang  the  trovador's  words,  the  juglar  de 
ptfiola  accompanying  on  some  simple  instrument,  while 
the  remendador  gave  the  story  in  pantomime. 

All  the  world  over  the  history  of  early  literatures  is 
identical.  With  the  Greeks  the  minstrel  attains  at  last 
an  important  post  in  the  chieftain's  train.  Seated  on  a 
high  chair  inlaid  with  silver,  he  entertains  the  guests, 
or  guards  the  wife  of  Agamemnon,  his  patron  and  his 
friend.  Just  so  does  Phemios  sing  amid  the  suitors  of 
Penelope.  It  was  not  always  thus.  Bentley  has  told  us 
in  his  pointed  way  that  "poor  Homer  in  those  circum- 
stances and  early  times  had  never  such  aspiring  thoughts" 
as  mankind  and  everlasting  fame  ;  and  that  "  he  wrote  a 
sequel  of  songs  and  rhapsodies  to  be  sung  by  himself 
for  small  earnings  and  good  cheer,  at  festivals,  and  other 
days  of  merriment."  This  rise  and  fall  occurred  in  Spain 
as  elsewhere.  For  her  early  trovadores  vrjuglares,  as  for 
Demodokos  in  the  Odyssey,  and  as  for  Fergus  Maclvor's 
sennachie,  a  cup  of  wine  sufficed.  "  Dat  nos  del  vino  si 
non  tenedes  dinneros,"  says  the  juglar  who  sang  the  Cid's 
exploits  :  "  Give  us  wine,  if  you  have  no  money."  Gon- 
zalo  de  Berceo,  the  first  Castilian  writer  whose  name 
reaches  us,  is  likewise  the  first  Castilian  to  use  the  word 
trovador  in  his  Loores  de  Nuestra  Seilora  (The  Praises  of 
Our  Lady)  : 

"Aun  merced  te pido par  el  tu  trobador" 
(Thy  favour  I  irrplore  for  this  thy  troubadour.) 

But,  though  a  priest  and  a  trovador  proud  of  his  double 
office,  Berceo  claims  his  wages  without  a  touch  of  false 


28  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

shame.  In  his  Vida  del glorioso  Confesor  Sancto  Domingo 
de  Silos  he  proves  the  overlapping  of  his  functions  by 
styling  himself  the  saint's  juglar ;  and  in  the  opening  of 
the  same  poem  he  vouches  for  it  that  his  song  "will  be 
well  worth,  as  I  think,  a  glass  of  good  wine  " : 

" Bien  valdrd,  comma  creo,  un  vaso  de  bon  vino" 

As  popularity  grew,  modesty  disappeared.  The  tro- 
vador,  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  failed  under  the  trials 
of  prosperity.  He  became  the  curled  darling  of  kings 
and  nobles,  and  haggled  over  prices  and  salaries  in  the 
true  spirit  of  "our  eminent  tenor."  In  a  rich  land  like 
France  he  was  given  horses,  castles,  estates ;  in  the 
poorer  Spain  he  was  fain  to  accept,  with  intermittent 
grumblings,  embroidered  robes,  couches,  ornaments — 
"  muchos  patios  e  sillas  /  guarnimientos  nobres."  He  was 
spoon-fed,  dandled,  pampered,  and  sedulously  ruined 
by  the  disastrous  good-will  of  his  ignorant  betters. 
These  could  not  leave  Ephraim  alone :  they  too  must 
wed  his  idols.  Alfonso  the. Learned  enlisted  in  the  corps 
of  trovadores,  as  Alfonso  II.  of  Arag6n  had  done  before 
him ;  and  King  Diniz  of  Portugal  followed  the  example. 
To  pose  as  a  trovador  became  in  certain  great  houses 
a  family  tradition.  The  famous  Constable,  Alvaro  de 
Luna,  composes  because  his  uncle,  Don  Pedro,  the 
Archbishop  of  Toledo,  has  preceded  him  in  the  school. 
Grouped  round  the  commanding  figure  of  the  Marques 
de  Santillana  stand  the  rivals  of  his  own  house-top  : 
his  grandfather,  Pedro  Gonzalez  de  Mendoza  ;  his  father, 
the  Admiral  Diego  Furtado  de  Mendoza,  a  picaroon 
poet,  spiteful,  brutal,  and  witty  ;  his  uncle,  Pedro  Velez 
de  Guevara,  who  turns  you  a  song  of  roguery  or 
devotion  with  equal  indifference  and  mastery.  Santi- 


THE  TROVADCR  29 

liana's  is  "a  numerous  house,  with  many  kinsmen  gay"  ; 
still,  in  all  save  success,  his  case  typifies  a  dominant 
fashion. 

In  the  society  of  clerkly  magnates  the  trovado^s  ac- 
complishments developed  ;  and  the  equipped  artist  was 
expected  to  be  master  of  several  instruments,  to  be  pat 
with  litanies  of  versified  tales,  and  to  have  Virgil  at 
his  finger-tips.  Schools  were  founded  where  aspirants 
were  taught  to  trobar  and  fazer  on  classic  principles, 
and  the  breed  multiplied  till  trovador  and  juglar  pos- 
sessed the  land.  The  world  entire — tall,  short,  old, 
young,  nobles,  serfs  —  did  nought  but  make  or  hear 
verses,  as  that  trovador  errant,  Vidal  de  Besalu,  records. 
It  may  be  that  Poggio's  anecdote  of  a  later  time  is 
literally  true  :  that  a  poor  man,  absorbed  in  Hector's 
story,  paid  the  spouter  to  adjourn  the  catastrophe  from 
day  to  day  till,  his  money  being  spent,  he  was  forced 
to  hear  the  end  with  tears. 

Troubadouring  became  at  last  a  pestilence  no  less 
mischievous  than  its  successor  knight-errantry,  and  its 
net  was  thrown  more  widely.  Alfonso  of  Aragon  led 
the  way  with  a  celebrated  Provengal  ballad,  wherein 
he  avers  that  "  not  snow,  nor  ice,  nor  summer,  but  God 
and  love  are  the  motives  of  my  song  "  : 

"  Mas  al  meu  chan  neus  ni  glatz 
No  m'ajuda,  ri'estaz, 
Ni  res,  mas  Dieus  et  amors." 

Not  every  man  could  hope  to  be  a  knight ;  but  all  ranks 
and  both  sexes  could — and  did — sing  of  God  and  love. 
To  emperors  and  princes  must  be  added  the  lowlier 
figures  of  Berceo,  in  Spain,  or — to  go  afield  for  the 
extremest  case  —  the  Joculator  Domini,  the  inspired 


3o  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

madman,  Jacopone  da  Todi,  in  Italy.  With  the  juglar 
strolled  the  primitive  actress,  the  juglaresa,  mentioned 
in  the  Libre  del  Apolonio,  and  branded  as  "  infamous  "  in 
Alfonso's  code  of  Las  Siete  Partidas.  At  the  court  of 
Juan  II.,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  the  eccentric  Garci 
Ferrandes  of  Jerena,  a  court  poet,  married  a  juglaresa, 
and  lived  to  lament  the  consequences  in  a  cantica  of 
the  Cancionero  de  Baena  (No.  555).  In  northern  Europe 
there  flourished  a  tribe  of  jovial  clerics  called  Goliards 
(after  a  mythical  Pope  Golias),  who  counted  Catullus, 
Horace,  and  Ovid  for  their  masters,  and  blent  their 
anacreontics  with  blasphemy — as  in  the  Confessio  Golia, 
wrongly  ascribed  to  our  Walter  Map.  The  repute  of 
this  gentry  is  chronicled  in  the  Canterbury  Tales : 

"  He  was  a  jangler  and  a  goliardeis, 
And  that  -was  of  most  sin  and  harlotries" 

And  the  type,  if  not  the  name,  existed  in  the  Peninsula. 
So  much  might  be  inferred  from  the  introduction  and 
passage  of  a  law  forbidding  the  ordination  of  juglares ; 
and,  in  the  Cancioneiro  Portuguez  da  Vaticana  (No. 
931),  Estevam  da  Guarda  banters  a  juglar  who,  taking 
orders  in  expectance  of  a  prebend  which  he  never 
received,  was  prevented  by  his  holy  estate  from  re- 
turning to  his  craft.  But  close  at  hand,  in  the  person 
of  Juan  Ruiz,  Archpriest  of  Hita — the  greatest  name 
in  early  Castilian  literature — is  your  Spanish  Goliard 
incarnate. 

The  prosperity  of  trovador  *x\&  juglar  could  not  endure. 
First  of  foreign  trovadores  to  reach  Spain,  the  Gascon 
Marcabru  treats  Alfonso  VII.  (1126-57)  almost  as  an 
equal.  Raimbaud  de  Vaquerias,  in  what  must  be  among 
the  earliest  copies  of  Spanish  verse  (not  without  a  Galician 


THE  TROVADOR  31 

savour),  holds  his  head  no  less  high  ;  and  the  apotheosis 
of  ihejuglar  is  witnessed  by  Vidal  de  Besalu  at  the  court 
of  Alfonso  VIII.  (1158-1214). 

"  Unas  novas  vos  vuelh  comtar 
Que  auzi  dir  a  unjoglar 
En  la  cort  del  pus  savi  rei 
Que  ancfos  de  neguna  lei" 

"  Fain  would  I  give  ye  the  verses  which  I  heard  recited 
by  z.juglar  at  the  court  of  the  most  learned  king  that  ever 
any  rule  beheld."  This  was  the  "happier  Age  of  Gold." 
A  century  and  a  half  later,  Alfonso  the  Learned,  himself, 
as  we  have  seen,  a  trovador,  classes  the  juglar  and  his 
assistants — los  que  son  juglares,  e  los  remendadores — with 
the  town  pimp ;  and  fathers  not  themselves  juglares 
are  empowered  to  disinherit  any  son  who  takes  to  the 
calling  against  his  father's  will.  The  Villasandino, 
already  mentioned,  a  pert  Galician  trovador  at  Juan  II.'s 
court,  was  glad  to  speak  his  own  pieces  at  Seville, 
and  candidly  avowed  that,  like  his  early  predecessors, 
he  "worked  for  bread  and  wine" — " labro  por  pan  e 
vino!' 

The  foreign  singer  had  received  the  half-pence ;  the 
native  received  the  kicks.  And  in  the  last  decline  the 
executants  were  blind  men  who  sang  before  church- 
doors  and  in  public  squares,  lacing  old  ballads  with  what 
they  were  pleased  to  call  "emendations,"  or,  in  other 
words,  intruding  original  banalities  of  their  own.  This 
decline  of  material  prosperity  had  a  most  disastrous 
effect  upon  literature.  A  popular  cantar  or  song  was 
written  by  a  poor  man  of  genius.  Accordingly  he  sold 
his  copyright  :  that  is  to  say,  he  taught  his  cantar  to 
reciters,  who  paid  in  cash,  or  in  drink,  when  they  had  it 


32  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

by  heart,  and  thus  the  song  travelled  the  country  over- 
long  with  no  author's  name  attached  to  it.  More  :  re- 
peated by  many  lips  during  a  long  period  of  years,  the 
form  of  a  very  popular  cantar  manifestly  ran  the  risk 
of  change  so  radical  that  within  a  few  generations  the 
original  might  be  transformed  in  such  wise  as  to  be 
practically  lost.  This  fate  has,  in  effect,  overtaken  the 
great  body  of  early  Spanish  song. 

It  is  beyond  question  that  there  once  existed  cantares 
(though  we  cannot  fix  their  date)  in  honour  of  Bernaldo 
de  Carpio,  of  Fernan  Gonzalez,  and  of  the  Infantes  de 
Lara  ;  the  point  as  regards  the  Infantes  de  Lara  is  proved 
to  demonstration  in  the  masterly  study  of  D.  Ramon 
Menendez  Pidal.  The  assonants  of  the  original  songs 
are  found  preserved  in  the  chronicles,  and  no  one  with 
the  most  rudimentary  idea  of  the  conditions  of  Spanish 
prose-composition  (whence  assonants  are  banned  with 
•extreme  severity)  can  suppose  that  any  Spaniard  could 
write  a  page  of  assonants  in  a  fit  of  absent-mindedness. 
Two  considerable  cantares  de  gesta  of  the  Cid  survive  as 
fragments,  and  they  owe  their  lives  to  a  happy  accident 
— the  accident  of  being  written  down.  They  must  have 
had  fellows,  but  probably  not  an  immense  number  of 
them,  as  in  France.  If  the  formal  cantar  de  gesta  died 
young,  its  spirit  lived  triumphantly  in  the  set  chronicle 
and  in  the  brief  romance.  In  the  chronicle  the  author 
aims  at  closer  exactitude  and  finer  detail,  in  the  romance 
at  swifter  movement  and  at  greater  picturesqueness  of 
artistic  incident.  The  term  romanz  or  romance,  first  of  all 
limited  to  any  work  written  in  the  vernacular,  is  used  in 
that  sense  by  the  earliest  of  all  known  troubadours,  Count 
William  of  Poitiers. 

In  the  thirteenth  century,  romanz  or  romance  acquires 


THE  ROMANCES  33 

a  fresh  meaning  in  Spain,  begins  to  be  used  as  an  equi- 
valent for  cat/tar,  and  ends  by  supplanting  the  word 
completely.  Hence,  by  slow  degrees,  romance  comes  to 
have  its  present  value,  and  is  applied  to  a  lyrico-narra- 
tive  poem  in  eight-syllabled  assonants.  The  Spanish 
Romancero  is,  beyond  all  cavil,  the  richest  mine  of  ballad 
poetry  in  the  world,  and  it  was  once  common  to  declare 
that  it  embodied  the  oldest  known  examples  of  Castilian 
verse.  As  the  assertion  is  still  made  from  time  to  time,  it 
becomes  necessary  to  say  that  it  is  unfounded.  It  is  true 
that  the  rude  cantar  was  never  forgotten  in  Spain,  and 
that  its  persistence  partly  explains  the  survival  of  asso- 
nance in  Castilian  long  after  its  abandonment  by  the  rest 
of  Europe.  In  his  historic  letter  to  Dom  Pedro,  Constable 
of  Portugal,  the  Marques  de  Santillana  speaks  with  a 
student's  contempt  of  singers  who,  "against  all  order, 
rule,  and  rhythm,  invent  these  romances  and  cantares 
wherein  common  lewd  fellows  do  take  delight."  But 
no  specimens  of  the  primitive  age  remain,  and  no  exist- 
ing romance  is  older  than  Santillana's  own  fifteenth 
century. 

The  numerous  Cancioncros  from  Baena's  time  to  the 
appearance  of  the  Romancero  General  (the  First  Part 
printed  in  1602,  with  additions  in  1604-14  ;  the  Second 
Part  issued  in  1605)  present  a  vast  collection  of  admirable 
lyrics,  mostly  the  work  of  accomplished  courtly  versifiers. 
They  contain  very  few  examples  of  anything  that  can 
be  justly  called  old  popular  songs.  Alonso  de  Fuentes 
published  in  1550  his  Libro  de  los  Cuarenta  Cantos  de 
Diversas  y  Peregrinas  Historias,  and  in  the  following  year 
was  issued  Lorenzo  de  Sepulveda's  selection.  Both  pro- 
fess to  reproduce  the  "rusticity"  as  well  as  the  "tone 
and  metre"  of  the  ancient  romances ;  but,  in  fact,  these 


34  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

songs,  like  those  given  by  Escobar  in  the  Romancero  del 
Cid  (1612),  are  either  written  by  such  students  as  Cesareo, 
who  read  up  his  subject  in  the  chronicles,  and  imitated 
the  old  manner  as  best  he  could,  or  they  are  due  to 
others  who  treated  the  oral  traditions  and  pliegos  sueltos 
(broadsides)  of  Spain  with  the  same  inspired  freedom 
that  Burns  showed  to  the  local  ditties  and  chapbooks 
of  Scotland.  The  two  oldest  romances  bearing  any 
author's  name  are  given  in  Lope  de  Stiiftiga's  Cancionero, 
and  are  the  work  of  Carvajal,  a  fifteenth-century  poet. 
Others  may  be  of  earlier  date ;  but  it  is  impossible  to 
identify  them,  inasmuch  as  they  have  been  retouched 
and  polished  by  singers  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries.  If  they  exist  at  all — a  matter  of  grave  un- 
certainty— they  must  be  sought  in  the  two  Antwerp 
editions  of  Martin  Nucio's  Cancionero  de  Romances  (one 
undated,  the  other  of  1550),  and  in  Esteban  de  Najera's 
Silva  de  Romances,  printed  at  Zaragoza  in  1550. 

There  remains  to  say  a  last  word  on  the  disputed 
relation  between  the  early  Castilian  and  French  litera- 
tures. Like  the  auctioneer  in  Middlemarch,  patriots 
"talk  wild"  :  as  Amador  de  los  Rios  in  his  monu- 
mental fragment,  and  the  Comte  de  Puymaigre  in  his 
essays.  No  fact  is  better  established  than  the  universal 
vogue  of  French  literature  between  the  twelfth  and 
fourteenth  centuries,  a  vogue  which  lasted  till  the  real 
supremacy  of  Dante  and  Boccaccio  and  Petrarch  was 
reluctantly  acknowledged.  It  is  probable  that  Frederic 
Barbarossa  wrote  in  Provencal ;  his  nephew,  Frederic  II., 
sedulously  aped  the  Provencal  manner  in  his  Italian 
verses  called  the  Lodi  delta  donna  amata.  Marco  Polo, 
Brunetto  Latini,  and  Mandeville  wrote  in  French  for 
the  same  reason  that  almost  persuaded  Gibbon  to  wrrite 


THE  FRENCH   INFLUENCE  35 

his  History  in  French.  The  substitution  of  the  Gallic 
for  the  Gothic  character  in  the  eleventh  century  ad- 
vanced one  stage  further  a  process  begun  by  the  French 
adventurers  who  shared  in  the  reconquest. 

With  these  last  came  the  French  jongleurs  to  teach 
the  Spaniards  the  gentle  art  of  making  the  chanson  de 
geste.  The  very  phrase,  cantar  de  gesta,  bespeaks  its 
French  source.  As  the  root  of  the  Cid  epic  lies  in 
Roland,  so  the  Mystery  of  the  Magian  Kings  is  but  an 
offshoot  of  the  Cluny  Liturgy.  The  earliest  mention  of 
the  Cid,  in  the  Latin  Chronicle  of  Almerta,  joins  the 
national  hero,  significantly  enough,  with  those  two 
unexampled  paragons  of  France,  Oliver  and  Roland. 
Another  French  touch  appears  in  the  Poem  of  Ferndn 
Gonzalez,  where  the  writer  speaks  of  Charlemagne's 
defeat  at  Roncesvalles,  and  laments  that  the  battle  was 
not  an  encounter  with  the  Moors,  in  which  Bernaldo 
del  Carpio  might  have  scattered  them.  But  we  are  not 
left  to  conjecture  and  inference  ;  the  presence  of  French 
jongleurs  is  attested  by  irrefragable  evidence.1  Sancho  I. 
of  Portugal  had  at  court  a  French  jongleur  who  in  name, 
if  in  nothing  else,  somewhat  resembled  Guy  de  Maupas- 
sant's creation,  "  Bon  Amis."  It  is  not  proved  that 
Sordello  ever  reached  Spain ;  but,  in  the  true  manner 
of  your  bullying  parasite,  he  denounces  St.  Ferdinand 
as  one  who  "  should  eat  for  two,  since  he  rules  two 
kingdoms,  and  is  unfit  to  govern  one  "  : — 

"  E  lo  Rets  castelds  tank  qden  manje  per  dos, 
Quar  dos  regismes  ten,  ni per  Pun  non  es pros" 


1  See  Mila  y  Fontanals,  Los  Trovadores  en  Espafta  (Barcelona,  1889),  and  th* 
same  writer's  Resenya  hist6rica  y  crilica  dels  antichs  poetas  Catalans  in  the 
third  volume  of  his  Obras  completes  (Barcelona,  1890). 


36  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Sordello,  indeed,  in  an  earlier  couplet  denounces  St. 
Louis  of  France  as  "  a  fool "  ;  but  Sordello  is  a  mere 
bilk  and  blackmailer  with  the  gift  of  song. 

Among  French  minstrels  traversing  Spain  are  Pere 
Vidal,  who  vaunts  the  largesse  of  Alfonso  VIII.,  and 
Guirauld  de  Calanson,  who  lickspittles  the  name  of  Pedro 
II.  of  Arag6n.  Upon  them  followed  Guilhem  Azemar, 
a  de'dasse'  noble,  who  sank  to  earning  his  bread  as  a 
common  jongleur,  and  later  on  there  comes  a  crowd  of 
singing-quacks  and  booth-spouters.  It  is  usual  to  lay 
stress  upon  the  influx  of  French  among  the  pilgrims  of 
the  Milky  Way  on  the  road  to  the  shrine  of  the  national 
St.  James  at  Santiago  de  Compostela  in  Galicia  ;  and 
it  is  a  fact  that  the  first  to  give  us  a  record  of  this  pious 
journey  is  Aimeric  Picaud  in  the  twelfth  century,  who 
unkindly  remarks  of  the  Basques,  that  "when  they  eat, 
you  would  take  them  for  hogs,  and  when  they  speak, 
for  dogs."  This  vogue  was  still  undiminished  three 
hundred  years  later  when  our  own  William  Wey  (once 
Fellow  of  Eton,  and  afterwards,  as  it  seems,  an  Augus- 
tinian  monk  at  Edyngdon  Monastery  in  Wiltshire)  wrote 
his  Itinerary  (1456).  But  though  the  pilgrimage  to 
Santiago  is  noted  as  a  peculiarly  "  French  devotion " 
by  Lope  de  Vega  in  his  Francesilla  (1620),  it  is  by  no 
means  clear  that  the  French  pilgrims  outnumbered 
those  of  other  nations.  Even  if  they  did,  this  would 
not  explain  the  literary  predominance  of  France.  This 
is  not  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  scampering  flight  of  a 
horde  of  illiterate  fakirs  anxious  only  to  save  their  souls 
and  reach  their  homes  :  it  is  rather  the  natural  result 
of  a  steady  immigration  of  clerks  in  the  suites  of  French 
bishops  and  princes,  of  French  monks  attracted  by  the 
spoil  of  Spanish  monasteries,  of  French  lords  and  knights 


INTERMEDIATE  VERSE  37 

and  gentlemen  who  shared  in  the  Crusades,  and  whose 
jongleurs,  mimes,  and  tumblers  came  with  them. 

Explain  it  as  we  choose,  the  influence  of  France 
on  Spain  is  puissant  and  enduring.  One  sees  it  best 
when  the  Spaniard,  natural  or  naturalised,  turns  crusty. 
Roderic  of  Toledo  (himself  an  archbishop  of  the  Cluny 
clique)  protests  against  those  Spanish  juglares  \vho  cele- 
brate the  fictitious  victories  of  Charlemagne  in  Spain  ; 
and  Alfonso  the  Learned  bears  him  out  by  deriding  the 
songs  and  fables  on  these  mythic  triumphs,  since  the 
Emperor  "  at  most  conquered  somewhat  in  Cantabria." 
A  passage  in  the  Cronica  General  goes  to  show  that  some, 
at  least,  of  the  early  French  jongleurs  sang  to  their  audi- 
ences in  French — clearly,  as  it  seems,  to  a  select,  patrician 
circle.  And  this  raises,  obviously,  a  curious  question. 
It  seems  natural  to  admit  that  in  Spain  (let  us  say  in 
Navarre  and  Upper  Aragon)  poems  were  written  by 
French  trouveres  and  troubadours  in  a  mixed  hybrid 
jargon ;  and  the  very  greatest  of  Spanish  scholars, 
D.  Marcelino  Menendez  y  Pelayo,  inclines  to  believe  in 
their  possible  existence.  There  is,  in  L' Entree  en  Espagne, 
a  passage  wherein  the  author  declares  that,  besides  the 
sham  Chronicle  of  Turpin,  his  chief  authorities  are 

"dous  dons  clerges  Can-gras  et  Gauteron, 
Can  de  Navaire  et  Gaulier  d'Arragon." 

John  of  Navarre  and  Walter  of  Aragon  may  be,  as 
Seftor  Menendez  y  Pelayo  suggests,  two  "worthy  clerks" 
who  once  existed  in  the  flesh,  or  they  may  be  imaginings 
of  the  author's  brain.  More  to  the  point  is  the  fact  that, 
unlike  the  typical  chanson  de  geste,  this  Entree  en  Espagne 
has  two  distinct  types  of  rhythm  (the  Alexandrine  and 
the  twelve-syllable  line),  as  in  the  Poema  del  Cid ;  and 


38  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

not  less  significant  is  the  foreign  savour  of  the  language. 
All  that  can  be  safely  said  is  that  Senor  Menendez  y 
Pelayo's  theory  is  probable  enough  in  itself,  that  it  is 
presented  with  great  ingenuity,  that  it  is  backed  by  the 
best  authority  that  opinion  can  have,  and  that  it  is  in- 
capable of  proof  or  disproof  in  the  absence  of  texts. 

But  if  Spain,  unlike  Italy,  has  no  authentic  poems  in 
an  intermediate  tongue,  proofs  of  French  influence  are 
not  lacking  in  her  earliest  movements.  Two  of  the  most 
ancient  Castilian  lyrics — Razdn  feita  d' Amor  and  the 
Disputa  del  Alma — are  mere  liftings  from  the  French  ; 
the  Book  of  Apolonius  teems  with  Provengalisms,  and 
the  poem  called  the  History  of  St.  Mary  of  Egypt  is  so 
gallicised  in  idiom  that  Mila  y  Fontanals,  a  ripe  scholar 
and  a  true-blue  Spaniard,  was  half  inclined  to  think  it 
one  of  those  intermediary  productions  which  are  sought 
in  vain.  At  every  point  proofs  of  French  guidance 
confront  us.  Anxious  to  buffet  and  outrage  his  father's 
old  trovador,  Pero  da  Ponte,  Alfonso  the  Learned  taunts 
him  with  illiteracy,  seeing  that  he  does  not  compose  in 
the  Provencal  vein  : — 

"  Vos  non  trovades  como  proenqal" 

And,  for  our  purpose,  we  are  justified  in  appealing  to 
Portugal  for  testimony,  remembering  always  that  Por- 
tugal exaggerates  the  condition  of  things  in  Spain.  King 
Diniz,  Alfonso  the  Learned's  nephew,  plainly  indicates 
his  model  when  in  the  Vatican  Cancioneiro  (No.  123)  he 
declares  that  he  "  would  fain  make  a  love-song  in  the 
Provencal  manner  "  : — 

"  Quer1  eu,  en  maneyra  de  proen$al, 
Fazer agora  um  cantar  (famor" 


LOST  CANCIONEROS  39 

And  Alfonso's  own  Cantigas,  honeycombed  with  Galli- 
cisms, are  frankly  Provengal  in  their  wonderful  variety 
of  metre.  Nor  should  we  suppose  that  the  Provengaux 
fought  the  battle  alone  :  the  northern  trouveres  bore 
their  part. 

The  French  school,  then,  is  strong  in  Spain,  omni- 
potent in  Portugal,  and,  were  the  Spanish  Cancioneros 
as  old  as  the  Portuguese  Song-book  in  the  Vatican,  we 
should  probably  find  that  the  foreign  influence  was  but 
a  few  degrees  less  marked  in  the  one  country  than  in 
the  other.  As  it  is,  Alfonso  the  Learned  ranks  with 
any  Portuguese  of  them  all ;  and  it  is  reasonable  to 
think  that  he  had  fellows  whose  achievement  and  names 
have  not  reached  us.  For  Spanish  literature  and  our- 
selves the  loss  is  grave  ;  and  yet  we  cannot  conceive 
that  there  existed  in  early  Castilian  any  examples  com- 
parable in  elaborate  lyrical  beauty  to  the  cantars  d'amigo 
which  the  Galician-Portuguese  singers  borrowed  from 
the  French  ballettes.  In  the  first  place,  if  they  had 
existed,  it  is  next  to  incredible  that  no  example  and 
no  tradition  of  them  should  survive.  Next,  the  idea  is 
intrinsically  improbable,  since  the  Castilian  language  was 
not  yet  sufficiently  ductile  for  the  purpose.  Moreover, 
from  the  outset  there  is  a  counter-current  in  Castile. 
The  early  Spanish  legends  are  mostly  concerned  with 
Spanish  subjects.  Apart  from  obvious  foreign  touches 
in  the  early  recensions  of  the  story  of  Bernaldo  de 
Carpio  (who  figures  as  Charlemagne's  nephew),  the 
tone  of  the  ballads  is  hostile  to  the  French,  and,  as  is 
natural,  the  enmity  grows  more  pronounced  with  time. 
That  national  hero,  the  Cid,  is  especially  anti-French. 
He  casts  the  King  of  France  in  gaol ;  he  throws  away 
the  French  King's  chair  with  insult  in  St.  Peter's.  Still 
4 


40  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

more  significant  is  the  fact  that  the  character  of  French 
women  becomes  a  jest.  Thus,  the  balladist  emphasises 
the  fact  that  the  faithless  wife  of  Garci-Fernandez  is 
French ;  and,  again,  when  Sancho  Garcia's  mother,  like- 
wise French,  appears  in  a  romance,  the  singer  gives  her 
a  blackamoor — an  Arab — as  a  lover.  This  is  primitive 
man's  little  way,  the  world  over  :  he  pays  off  old  scores 
by  deriding  the  virtue  of  his  enemy's  wife,  mother, 
daughter,  sister ;  and  in  primitive  Spain  the  French- 
woman is  the  lightning  -  conductor  of  international 
scandals,  tolerable  by  the  camp-fire,  but  tedious  in 
print. 

In  considering  early  Spanish  verse  it  behoves  us  to 
denote  facts  and  to  be  chary  in  drawing  inferences. 
Thus,  while  we  admit  that  the  Poema  del  Cid  and  the 
Chanson  de  Roland  belong  to  the  same  genre,  we  can 
go  no  further.  It  is  not  to  be  assumed  that  similarity 
of  incident  necessarily  implies  direct  imitation.  The 
introduction  of  the  fighting  bishop  in  the  Cid  poem  is 
a  case  in  point.  His  presence  in  the  field  may  be — 
almost  certainly  is — an  historic  event,  common  enough 
in  days  when  a  militant  bishop  loved  to  head  a  charge  ; 
and  the  chronicler  may  well  have  seen  the  exploits  which 
he  records.  It  by  no  means  follows,  and  it  is  extravagant 
to  suppose,  that  the  Spanish  juglar  merely  filches  from 
the  Chanson  de  Roland.  That  he  had  heard  the  Chanson 
is  not  only  probable,  but  likely  ;  it  is  not,  to  say  the 
least,  a  necessary  consequence  that  he  annexed  an  epi- 
sode as  familiar  in  Spain  as  elsewhere.  Nothing,  if  you 
probe  deep  enough,  is  new,  and  originality  is  a  vain 
dream.  But  some  margin  must  be  left  for  personal 
experience  and  the  hazard  of  circumstance  ;  and  if  we 
take  account  of  the  chances  of  coincidence,  the  debt  of 


THE  CASTILIAN   REACTION  41 

Castilian  to  French  literature  will  appear  in  its  due 
perspective.  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  from  a  very 
early  date  there  are  traces  of  the  reflex  action  of 
Castilian  upon  French  literature.  They  are  not,  indeed, 
many ;  but  they  are  authentic  beyond  carping.  In  the 
ancient  Fragment  de  la  Vie  de  Saint  Fides  dAgen,  which 
dates  from  the  eleventh  century,  the  Spanish  origin  is 
frankly  admitted  : — 

"  Canson  audi  que  bellantresca 
Quefo  de  razon  espanesca" — 

"  I  heard  a  beauteous  song  that  told  of  Spanish  things." 
Or,  once  more,  in  Adenet  le  Roi's  Cleomades,  and  in  its 
offshoot  the  Meliacin  of  Girard  d'Amiens,  we  meet  with 
the  wooden  horse  (familiar  to  readers  of  Don  Quixote) 
which  bestrides  the  spheres  and  curvets  among  the 
planets.  Borrowed  from  the  East,  the  story  is  trans- 
mitted to  the  Greeks,  is  annexed  by  the  Arabs,  and  is 
passed  on  through  them  to  Spain,  whence  Adenet  le 
Roi  conveys  it  for  presentation  to  the  western  world. 

More  directly  and  more  characteristically  Spanish  in 
its  origin  is  the  royal  epic  entitled  Ans/i's  de  Carthage. 
Here,  after  the  manner  of  your  epic  poet,  chronology 
is  scattered  to  the  winds,  and  we  learn  that  Charlemagne 
left  in  Spain  a  king  who  dishonoured  the  daughter  of 
one  of  his  barons ;  hence  the  invasion  by  the  Arabs, 
whom  the  baron  lets  loose  upon  his  country  as  avengers. 
The  basis  of  the  story  is  purely  Spanish,  being  a  some- 
what clumsy  arrangement  of  the  legend  of  Roderic, 
Cora,  and  Count  Julian  ;  the  city  of  Carthage  standing, 
it  may  be,  for  the  Spanish  Cartagena.  Hence  it  is 
clear  that  the  mutual  literary  debt  of  Spain  and  France 
is,  at  this  early  stage,  unequally  divided.  Spain,  like 


42  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

the  rest  of  the  world,  borrows  freely  ;  but,  with  the 
course  of  time,  the  position  is  reversed.  Moliere,  the 
two  Corneilles,  Rotrou,  Sorel,  Scarron,  and  Le  Sage,  to 
mention  but  a  few  eminent  names  at  hazard,  readjust 
the  balance  in  favour  of  Spain ;  and  the  inexhaustible 
resources  of  the  Spanish  theatre,  which  supply  the 
arrangements  of  scores  of  minor  French  dramatists, 
are  but  a  small  part  of  the  literature  whose  details  are 
our  present  concern. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  ANONYMOUS  AGE 
1150-1220 

IN  Spain,  as  in  all  countries  where  it  is  possible  to 
observe  the  origin  and  the  development  of  letters,  the 
earliest  literature  bears  the  stamp  of  influences  which 
are  either  epic  or  religious.  These  primitive  pieces  are 
characterised  by  a  vein  of  popular,  unconscious  poetry, 
with  scarce  a  touch  of  personal  artistry ;  and  the  ascrip- 
tion which  refers  one  or  other  of  them  to  an  individual 
writer  is,  for  the  most  part,  arbitrary.  Insufficiency  of 
data  makes  it  impossible  to  identify  the  oldest  literary 
performance  in  Spanish  Romance.  Jews  like  Judah 
ben  Samuel  the  Levite,  and  trovadores  like  Rambaud  de 
Vaqueiras,  arabesque  their  verses  with  Spanish  tags  and 
refrains  ;  but  these  are  whimsies.  Our  choice  lies  rather 
between  the  Misterio  de  los  Reyes  Magos  (Mystery  of  the 
Magian  Kings)  and  the  so-called  Poema  del  Cid  (Poem 
of  the  Cid).  Experts  differ  concerning  their  respective 
dates ;  but  the  liturgical  derivation  of  the  Misterio  inclines 
one  to  hold  it  for  the  elder  of  the  two.  If  Lidforss  were 
right  in  attributing  it  to  the  eleventh  century,  the  play 
would  rank  among  the  first  in  any  modern  language. 
Amador  de  los  Ri'os  dates  it  still  further  back.  As 
these  pretensions  are  excessive,  the  known  facts  may 
be  briefly  given.  The  Misterio  follows  upon  a  com- 


44  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

mentary  on  the  Lamentations  of  Jeremiah,  written  by 
a  canon  of  Auxerre,  Gilibert  1'Universel,  who  died  in 
1134;  and  its  existence  was  first  denoted  at  the  end 
of  the  last  century  by  Felipe  Fernandez  Vallejo,  Arch- 
bishop of  Santiago  de  Compostela  between  1798  and 
1800,  who  correctly  classified  it  as  a  dramatic  scene 
to  be  given  on  the  Feast  of  the  Epiphany,  and  con- 
sidered it  a  version  from  some  Latin  original.  Both 
conjectures  have  proved  just.  Throughout  Europe  the 
Christian  theatre  derives  from  the  Church,  and  the  early 
plays  are  but  a  lay  vernacular  rendering  of  models 
studied  in  the  sanctuary.  Simplified  as  the  liturgy  now 
is,  the  Mass  itself,  the  services  of  Palm  Sunday  and 
Good  Friday,  are  the  unmistakable  debris  of  an  elabo- 
rate sacred  drama. 

The  Spanish  Misterio  proceeds  from  one  of  the  Latin 
offices  used  at  Limoges,  Rouen,  Nevers,  Compiegne,  and 
Orleans,  with  the  legend  of  the  Magi  for  a  motive  ;  and 
these,  in  turn,  are  dramatic  renderings  of  pious  tradi- 
tions, partly  oral,  and  partly  amplifications  of  the  apo- 
cryphal Protevangelium  Jacobi  Minoris  and  the  Historia 
de  Nativitate  Maries  et  de  Infantid  Salvatoris.1  These 
Franco-Latin  liturgical  plays,  here  mentioned  in  the 
probable  order  of  their  composition  during  the  eleventh 
and  twelfth  centuries,  reached  Spain  through  the  Bene- 
dictines of  Cluny  ;  and  as  in  each  original  redaction  there 
is  a  distinct  advance  upon  its  immediate  predecessor,  so 
in  the  Spanish  rendering  these  primitive  exemplars  are 
developed.  In  the  Limoges  version  there  is  no  action, 
the  rudimentary  dialogue  consisting  in  the  allotment  of 
liturgical  phrases  among  the  personages ;  in  the  Rouen 

1  Joannes  Karl  Thilo,  Codex  Apocryphus  Novi  Testamenti.  Lipsiee,  1833. 
Pp.  254-261,  388-393. 


MISTERIO  DE  LOS  MAGOS  45 

office,  the  number  of  actors  is  increased,  and  Herod, 
though  he  does  not  appear,  is  mentioned  ;  a  still  later 
redaction  brings  the  shepherds  on  the  scene.  The 
Spanish  Misterio  reaches  us  as  a  fragment  of  some 
hundred  and  fifty  lines,  ending  at  the  moment  when  the 
rabbis  consult  their  sacred  books  upon  Herod's  appeal  to 

" the  prophecies 
Which  Jeremiah  spake" 

Us  provenance  is  proved  by  the  inclusion  of  three  Virgilian 
lines]  (sEneid,  viii.  112-114),  lifted  by  tne  arranger  of  the 
Orleans  rite.  The  Magi  are  mentioned  by  name,  and 
one  speech  is  given  by  Caspar  :  important  points  which 
help  to  fix  the  date  of  writing.  A  passage  in  Bede  speaks 
of  Melchior,  senex  et  canus ;  of  Baltasar,  fuscus,  integre 
barbatus  ;  of  Caspar,  juvenis  imberbis ;  but  this  appears 
to  be  interpolated.  The  names  likewise  appear  in  the 
famous  sixth-century  mosaic  of  the  Church  of  Sant' 
Apollinare  della  Citta  at  Ravenna ;  and  here,  again, 
the  insertion  is  probably  a  pious  afterthought.  If 
Hartmann  be  justified  in  his  contention,  that  the  tradi- 
tional names  of  the  Magi  were  not  in  vogue  till  after 
the  alleged  discovery  of  their  remains  at  Milan  in  1158, 
the  Spanish  Misterio  can  be,  at  best,  no  older  than  the 
end  of  the  twelfth  century. 

Enough  of  it  remains  to  show  that  the  Spanish  work- 
man improved  upon  his  models.  He  elaborates  the 
dramatic  action,  quickens  the  dialogue  with  newer  life, 
and  gives  his  scene  an  ampler,  a  more  vivid  atmos- 
phere. Led  by  the  heavenly  star,  the  three  Magi  first 
appear  separately,  then  together ;  they  celebrate  the 
birth  of  Christ,  whom  they  seek  to  adore,  at  the  end 
of  their  thirteen  days'  pilgrimage.  Encountering  Herod, 


46  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

they  confide  to  him  their  mission  ;  the  King  conjures 
his  "abbots"  (rabbis),  counsellors,  and  soothsayers  to 
search  the  mystic  books,  and  to  say  whether  the  Magis' 
tale  be  true.  The  passages  between  Herod  and  his 
rabbis  are  marked  by  intensity  and  passion,  far  ex- 
ceeding the  Franco-Latin  models  in  dramatic  force ; 
and  there  is  a  corresponding  progress  of  mechanism, 
distribution,  and  rapidity. 

There  is  even  a  breath  of  the  critical  spirit  wholly 
absent  from  all  other  early  mysteries,  which  accept  the 
miraculous  sign  of  the  star  with  a  simple,  unquestion- 
ing faith.  In  our  play,  the  first  and  third  Magi  wish 
to  observe  it  another  night,  while  the  second  King 
would  fain  watch  it  for  three  entire  nights.  Lastly, 
the  scale  of  the  Misterio  is  larger  than  that  of  any 
predecessor ;  the  personages  are  not  huddled  upon  the 
scene  at  once,  but  appear  in  appropriate,  dramatic 
order,  delivering  more  elaborate  speeches,  and  express- 
ing at  greater  length  more  individual  emotions.  This 
fragmentary  piece,  written  in  octosyllabics,  forms  the 
foundation-stone  of  the  Spanish  theatre ;  and  from  it 
are  evolved,  in  due  progression,  "  the  light  and  odour  of 
the  flowery  and  starry  Autos"  which  were  to  enrapture 
Shelley.  Important  and  venerable  as  is  the  Misterio, 
its  freer  treatment  of  the  liturgy,  its  effectual  blending 
of  realism  with  devotion,  and  its  swiftness  of  action 
are  so  many  arguments  against  its  reputed  antiquity. 
It  is  still  old  if  we  adopt  the  conclusion  that  it  was 
written  some  twenty  years  before  the  Poe-ma  del  Cid. 

This  misnamed  epic,  no  unworthy  fellow  to  the  Chan- 
son de  Roland,  is  the  first  great  monument  of  Spanish 
literature.  Like  the  Misterio  de  los  Reyes  Magos,  like  so 
many  early  pieces,  the  Poema  del  Cid  reaches  us  maimed 


POEMA  DEL  CID  47 

and  mutilated.  The  beginning  is  lost ;  a  page  in  the 
middle,  containing  some  fifty  lines  following  upon  verse 
2338,  has  gone  astray  from  our  copy  ;  and  the  end  has 
been  retouched  by  unskilful  fingers.  The  unique  manu- 
script in  which  the  cantar  exists  belongs  to  the  four- 
teenth century  :  so  much  is  now  settled  after  infinite 
disputes.  The  original  composition  is  thought  to  date 
from  about  the  middle  third  of  the  twelfth  century 
(1135-75),  some  fifty  years  after  the  Cid's  death  at 
Valencia  in  1099.  Hence  the  Poem  of  the  Cid  stands 
almost  midway  between  the  Chanson  de  Roland  and  the 
Niebelungenlied.  Nevertheless,  in  its  surviving  shape  it 
is  the  result  of  innumerable  retouches  which  amount  to 
botching.  Its  authorship  is  more  than  doubtful,  for  the 
Per  Abbat  who  obtrudes  in  the  closing  lines  is,  like  the 
Turoldus  of  Roland,  the  mere  transcriber  of  an  unfaithful 
copy.  Our  gratitude  to  Per  Abbat  is  dashed  with  regret 
for  his  slapdash  methods.  The  assonants  are  roughly 
handled,  whole  phrases  are  unintelligently  repeated,  are 
transferred  from  one  line  to  another,  or  are  thrust  out 
from  the  text,  and  in  some  cases  two  lines  are  crushed 
into  one.  The  prevailing  metre  is  the  Alexandrine  or 
fourteen-syllabled  verse,  probably  adopted  in  conscious 
imitation  of  that  Latin  chronicle  on  the  conquest  of 
Almerfa  which  first  reveals  the  national  champion  under 
his  popular  title — 

"  Ipse  Rodertcus,  Mio  Cid  semper  vocatus, 
De  quo  cantatur,  quod ab  hostibus  haud superatus'^ 

However  that  may  be,  the  normal  measure  is  repro- 
duced with  curious  infelicity.  Some  lines  run  to  twenty 
syllables,  some  halt  at  ten,  and  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  many  of  these  irregularities  are  results  of  careless 


48  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

copying.  Still,  to  Per  Abbat  we  owe  the  preservation  of 
the  Cid  cantar  as  we  owe  to  Sanchez  its  issue  in  1779, 
more  than  half  a  century  before  any  French  chanson  de 
gcste  was  printed. 

The  Spanish  epic  has  a  twofold  theme — the  exploits 
of  the  exiled  Cid,  and  the  marriage  of  his  two  (mythical) 
daughters  to  the  Infantes  de  Carri6n.  Diffused  through 
Europe  by  the  genius  of  Corneille,  who  conveyed  his 
conception  from  Guillen  de  Castro,  the  legendary  Cid 
differs  hugely  from  the  Cid  of  history.  Uncritical  scep- 
ticism has  denied  his  existence  ;  but  Cervantes,  with  his 
good  sense,  hit  the  white  in  the  first  part  of  Don  Quixote 
(chapter  xlix.).  Unquestionably  the  Cicl  lived  in  the  flesh  : 
whether  or  not  his  alleged  achievements  occurred  is 
another  matter.  Irony  has  incidentally  marked  him  for 
its  own.  The  mercenary  in  the  pay  of  Zaragozan  emirs 
is  fabled  as  the  model  Spanish  patriot ;  the  plunderer  of 
churches  becomes  the  flower  of  orthodoxy  ;  the  cunning 
intriguer  who  rifled  Jews  and  mocked  at  treaties  is  trans- 
figured as  the  chivalrous  paladin ;  the  unsentimental 
trooper  who  never  loved  is  delivered  unto  us  as  the 
typical  jeune  premier.  Lastly,  the  mirror  of  Spanish 
nationality  is  best  known  by  his  Arabic  title  (Sidi  = 
lord).  Yet  two  points  must  be  kept  in  mind  :  the  facts 
which  discredit  him  are  reported  by  hostile  Arab  his- 
torians ;  and,  again,  the  Cid  is  entitled  to  be  judged  by 
the  standard  of  his  country  and  his  time.  So  judged, 
we  may  accept  the  verdict  of  his  enemies,  who  cursed 
him  as  "  a  miracle  of  the  miracles  of  God  and  the  con- 
queror of  banners."  Ruy  Diaz  de  Bivar— to  give  him 
his  true  name — was  something  more  than  a  freebooter 
whose  deeds  struck  the  popular  fancy  :  he  stood  for 
unity,  for  the  supremacy  of  Castile  over  Le6n,  and  his 


THE  CID  AND  ROLAND  49 

example  proved  that,  against  almost  any  odds,  the 
Spaniards  could  hold  their  own  against  the  Moors.  In 
the  long  night  between  the  disaster  of  Alarcos  and  the 
crowning  triumph  of  Navas  de  Tolosa,  the  Cid's  figure 
grew  glorious  as  that  of  the  man  who  had  never  de- 
spaired of  his  country,  and  in  the  hour  of  victory  the 
legend  of  his  inspiration  was  not  forgotten.  From  his 
death  at  Valencia  in  1099,  his  memory  became  a  national 
possession,  embellished  by  popular  poetic  fancy. 

In  the  Poema  the  treatment  is  obviously  modelled 
upon  the  Chanson  de  Roland.  But  there  is  a  fixed  intent 
to  place  the  Spaniard  first.  The  Cid  is  pictured  as  more 
human  than  Roland  :  he  releases  his  prisoners  without 
ransom  ;  he  gives  them  money  so  that  they  may  reach 
their  homes.  Charlemagne,  in  the  Chanson,  destroys  the 
idols  in  the  mosques,  baptizes  a  hundred  thousand  Sara- 
cens by  force,  hangs  or  flays  alive  the  recalcitrant ;  the 
Cid  shows  such  humanity  to  a  conquered  province  that 
on  his  departure  the  Moors  burst  forth  weeping,  and 
pray  for  his  prosperous  voyage.  The  machinery  in  both 
cases  is  very  similar.  As  the  archangel  Gabriel  appears 
to  Charlemagne,  he  appears  likewise  to  the  Cid  Cam- 
peador.  Bishop  Turpin  opens  the  battle  in  Roland,  and 
Bishop  Jerome  heads  the  charge  for  Spain.  Roland  and 
Ruy  Diaz  are  absolved  and  exhorted  to  the  same  effect, 
and  the  resemblance  of  the  epithet  curunez  applied  to 
the  French  bishop  is  too  close  to  the  coronado  of  the 
Spaniard  to  be  accidental.  But  allowing  for  the  fact 
that  the  Spanish  juglar  borrows  his  framework,  his  per- 
formance is  great  by  virtue  of  its  simplicity,  its  strength, 
its  spirit  and  fire.  Whether  he  deals  with  the  hungry 
loyalty  of  the  Cid  in  exile,  or  his  reception  into  favour 
by  an  ingrate  king  ;  whether  he  celebrates  the  overthrow 


So  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

of  the  Count  of  Barcelona  or  the  surrender  of  Valencia ; 
whether  he  sings  the  nuptials  of  Elvira  and  Sol  with 
the  Infantes  de  Carri6n,  or  the  avenging  Cid  who  seeks 
reparation  from  his  craven  son-in-law,  the  touch  is 
always  happy  and  is  commonly  final. 

There  is  an  unity  of  conception  and  of  language  which 
forbids  our  accepting  the  Poema  as  the  work  of  several 
hands ;  and  the  division  of  the  poem  into  separate 
cantares  is  managed  with  a  discretion  which  argues  a 
single  artistic  intelligence.  The  first  part  closes  with  the 
marriage  of  the  hero's  daughters  ;  the  second  with  the 
shame  of  the  Infantes  de  Carri6n,  and  the  proud  an- 
nouncement that  the  kings  of  Spain  are  sprung  from 
the  Cid's  loins.  In  both  the  singer  rises  to  the  level 
of  his  subject,  but  his  chief est  gust  is  in  the  recital  of 
some  brilliant  deed  of  arms.  Judge  him  when,  in  a 
famous  passage  well  rendered  by  Ormsby,  he  sings  the 
charge  of  the  Cid  at  Alcocer  : — 

"  With  bucklers  braced  before  their  breasts,  with  lances  pointing  low, 
With  stooping  crests  and  heads  dent  down  above  the  saddle-bow, 
All  firm  of  hand  and  high  of  heart  they  roll  upon  the  foe. 
And  he  that  in  a  good  hour  was  born,  his  clarion  "voice  rings  out, 
And  clear  above  the  clang  of  arms  is  heard  his  battle-shout, 
'  Among  them,  gentlemen  !    Strike  home  for  the  love  of  charity  ! 
The  Champion  of  Bivar  is  here — Ruy  Diaz — I  am  hef 
Then  bearing  where  Bermuez  still  maintains  unequal  fight, 
Three  hundred  lances  down   they  come,  their  pennons  flickering 

white; 

Down  go  three  hundred  Moors  to  earth,  a  man  to  every  blow; 
And,  when  they  wheel,  three  hundred  more,  as  charging  back  they  go. 
It  was  a  sight  to  see  the  lances  rise  and  fall  that  day ; 
The  shivered  shields  and  riven  mail,  to  see  how  thick  they  lay; 
The  pennons  that  went  in  snow-white  come  out  a  gory  red; 
The  horses  running  riderless,  the  riders  lying  dead; 
While  Moors  call  on  Muhammad,  and '  St.  James  / '  the  Christians 

cry" 


THE  AUTHOR  OF  THE  POEMA      51 

Indubitably  this  (and  it  were  easy  to  match  it  elsewhere 
in  the  Poemd)  is  the  work  of  an  original  genius  who  re- 
deems his  superficial  borrowings  of  incident  from  Roland 
by  a  treatment  all  his  own.  That  he  knew  the  French 
models  is  evident  from  his  skilful  conveyance  of  the  bear 
episode  in  Ider  to  his  own  pages,  where  the  Cid  encoun- 
ters the  beast  as  a  lion.  But  the  language  shows  no  hint 
of  French  influence,  and  both  thought  and  expression 
are  profoundly  national.  The  poet's  name  is  irrecover- 
able, but  the  internal  evidence  points  strongly  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  came  from  the  neighbourhood  of 
Medina  Celi.  The  surmise  that  he  was  an  Asturian  rests 
solely  upon  the  absence  of  the  diphthong  uefrom  his  lines, 
an  inference  on  the  face  of  it  unwarrantable.  Against 
this  is  the  topographical  minuteness  with  which  the  poet 
reports  the  sallies  of  the  Cid  in  the  districts  of  Castejon 
and  Alcocer ;  his  marked  ignorance  of  the  country  round 
Zaragoza  and  Valencia,  his  detailed  description  of  the 
central  episode — the  outrage  upon  the  Cid's  daughters  in 
the  wood  of  Corpes,  near  Berlanga ;  and  the  important 
fact  that  the  four  chief  itineraries  in  the  Poema  are  charged 
with  minutiae  from  Molina  to  San  Esteban  de  Gormaz, 
while  they  grow  vague  and  more  confused  as  they  extend 
towards  Burgos  and  Valencia.  The  most  probable  con- 
jecture, then,  is  that  the  unknown  maker  of  this  primitive 
masterpiece  came  from  the  Valle  de  Arbujuelo ;  and  it 
is  worth  adding  that  this  opinion  is  supported  by  the 
authority  of  Sr.  Menendez  Pidal.  Perhaps  the  greatest 
testimony  to  the  early  poet's  worth  is  to  be  found  in 
this :  that  his  conception  of  his  hero  has  outlived  the  true 
historic  Cid,  and  has  forced  the  child  of  his  imagination 
upon  the  acceptance  of  mankind. 

Even  more  fantastic  is  the  personality  of  Ruy  Diaz  as 


52  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

rendered  by  the  anonymous  compiler  of  the  Cronica 
Rimada  (Rhymed  Chronicle  of  Events  in  Spain  from  the 
Death  of  King  Pelayo  to  Ferdinand  the  Great,  and  more 
especially  of  the  Adventures  of  the  Cid).  The  composi- 
tion which  bears  this  clumsy  and  inappropriate  title  is 
better  named  the  Cantar  de  Rodrigo,  and  consists  of 
1125  lines,  preceded  by  a  scrap  of  rugged  prose.  Not 
till  after  digressions  into  other  episodes,  and  irrelevant 
stories  of  Miro  and  Bernardo,  Bishops  of  Palencia,  pro- 
bably fellow-townsmen  of  the  compiler,  does  the  Cid 
appear.  He  is  no  longer,  as  in  the  Poema,  a  popular 
hero,  idealised  from  historic  report ;  he  is  a  purely  ima- 
ginary figure,  incrusted  with  a  mass  of  fables  accumulated 
in  course  of  time.  At  the  age  of  twelve  he  slays  G6mez 
G6rmaz  (an  almost  impossible  style,  compounded  of  a 
patronymic  and  the  name  of  a  castle  belonging  to  the 
Cid),  is  claimed  by  the  dead  man's  daughter,  weds  her, 
vanquishes  the  Moors,  and  leads  his  King's — Fernando's 
— troops  to  the  gates  of  Paris,  defeating  the  Count  of 
Savoy  upon  the  road.  One  legend  is  heaped  upon 
another,  and  the  poem,  the  end  of  which  is  lost,  breaks 
off  with  the  Pope's  request  for  a  year's  truce,  which 
Fernando,  acting  as  ever  upon  the  Cid's  advice,  mag- 
nanimously extends  for  twelve  years.  It  is  hard  to  say 
whether  the  Cantar  de  Rodrigo  as  we  have  it  is  the 
production  of  a  single  composer,  or  whether  it  is  a 
patchwork  by  different  hands,  arranged  from  earlier 
poems,  and  eked  out  by  prose  stories  and  by  oral  tradi- 
tions. The  versification  is  that  of  the  simple  sixteen- 
syllabled  line,  each  hemistich  of  which  forms  a  typical 
romance  line.  This  in  itself  is  a  sign  of  its  later  date, 
and  to  this  must  be  added  the  traces  of  deliberate  imita- 
tion of  the  Poema,  and  the  writer's  familiarity  with  such 


CANTAR  DE  RODRIGO  53 

modern  devices  as  heraldic  emblems.  Further,  the  use 
of  a  Provencal  form  like  gensor,  the  unmistakable  tokens 
of  French  influence,  the  anticipation  of  the  metre  of 
the  clerkly  poems,  the  writer's  frank  admission  of  earlier 
songs  on  the  same  subject,  the  metamorphosis  of  the  Cid 
into  a  feudal  baron,  and,  above  all,  the  decadent  spirit  of 
the  entire  work  :  these  are  tokens  which  imply  a  relative 
modernity.  Much  of  the  obscurity  of  language,  which 
has  been  mistaken  for  archaism,  is  simply  due  to  the 
defects  of  the  manuscript ;  and  the  evidence  goes  to 
show  that  the  Rodrigo,  put  together  in  the  last  decade 
of  the  twelfth  century  or  the  first  of  the  thirteenth,  was 
retouched  in  the  fourteenth  by  Spanish  juglares  humili- 
ated by  the  recent  French  invasions.  Even  so,  much 
of  the  primitive  pastiche  remains,  and  the  Rodrigo,  which 
is  mentioned  in  the  General  Chronicle,  interests  us  as  being 
the  fountain-head  of  those  romances  on  the  Cid  whose 
collection  we  owe  to  that  enthusiastic  and  most  learned 
investigator,  Madame  Carolina  Michaelis  de  Vasconcellos. 
Far  inferior  in  merit  and  interest  to  the  Poema,  the 
Rodrigo  ranks  with  it  as  representative  of  the  submerged 
mass  of  cantares  de  gesta,  and  is  rightly  valued  as  the 
venerable  relic  of  a  lost  school. 

To  these  succeed  three  anonymous  poems,  the  Libra 
de  Apolonio  (Book  of  Apollonius),  the  Vida  de  Santa  Maria 
Egipdaqua  (Life  of  St.  Mary  the  Egyptian),  and  the 
Libre  dels  Tres  Reyes  dorient  (Book  of  the  Three  Eastern 
Kings),  all  discovered  in  one  manuscript  in  the  Escurial 
Library  by  Pedro  Jose  Pidal,  and  first  published  by  him 
in  1844.  The  story  of  Apollonius,  supposed  to  be  a  trans- 
lation of  a  Greek  romance,  filters  into  European  literature 
by  way  of  the  Gesta  Romanorum,  is  found  even  in  Ice- 
landic and  Danish  versions,  and  is  familiar  to  English 


54  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

readers  ot  Pericles.  The  nameless  Spanish  arranger  of 
the  thirteenth  century  (probably  a  native  of  Arag6n) 
gives  the  story  of  Apollonius'  adventures  with  force  and 
clearness,  anticipating  in  the  character  of  Tarsiana  the 
type  of  Preciosa,  the  heroine  of  Cervantes'  Gitanilla  and 
of  Weber's  opera.  Unfortunately  the  closing  tags  of 
moralisings  on  the  vanity  of  life  destroy  the  effect  which 
the  writer  has  produced  by  his  free  translation.  His 
text  is  suffused  with  Provengalisms,  and  his  mono- 
rhymed  quatrains  of  fourteen  syllables  are  evidence  of 
French  or  Provencal  origin.  This  metrical  novelty, 
extending  over  more  than  six  hundred  stanzas,  is  pro- 
perly regarded  by  the  author  as  his  chief  distinction, 
and  he  implores  God  and  the  Virgin  to  guide  him  in  the 
exercise  of  the  new  mastery  (nueva  maestrid).  It  is  fair 
to  add  that  his  experiment  has  the  interest  of  novelty, 
that  it  succeeded  beyond  measure  in  its  time,  and  that 
its  monotonous  vogue  endured  for  some  two  hundred 
years. 

To  the  same  period  belongs  the  Vida  de  Santa  Maria 
Egipciaqua,  the  earliest  Castilian  example  of  verses  of 
nine  syllables.  In  substance  it  is  a  version  of  the  Vie 
de  Saint  Marie  tEgyptienne,  ascribed  without  much 
reason  to  the  veritable  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  Robert 
Grosseteste  (?  1175-1253),  among  whose  Carmtna  Anglo- 
Normannica  the  French  original  is  interpolated.  The 
Spanish  version  follows  the  French  lead  with  almost 
pedantic  exactitude  ;  but  the  metre,  new  and  well  suited 
to  the  common  ear,  is  handled  with  an  easy  grace  re- 
markable in  a  first  effort.  As  happens  with  other  works 
of  this  time,  the  title  of  the  short  Libre  dels  Tres  Reyes 
dorient  is  misleading.  The  visit  of  the  Magi  is  briefly 
dismissed  in  the  first  fifty  lines,  the  poem  turning  chiefly 


LOPE  DE  MOROS  55 

upon  the  Flight  into  Egypt,  the  miracle  wrought  upon 
the  leprous  child  of  the  robber,  and  the  identification 
of  the  latter  with  the  repentant  thief  of  the  New 
Testament.  Like  its  predecessor,  this  legend  is  given 
in  nine-syllabled  verse,  and  is  undoubtedly  borrowed 
from  a  French  or  Provencal  source  not  yet  discovered. 

In  the  Disputa  del  Alma  y  el  Cuerpo  (Argument  be- 
twixt Body  and  Soul),  a  subject  which  passes  into 
all  mediaeval  literatures  from  a  copy  of  Latin  verses 
styled  Rixa  Animi  et  Corporis,  there  is  a  recurrence, 
though  with  innumerable  variants  of  measure,  to  the 
Alexandrine  type.  Thus  it  is  sought  to  reproduce  the 
music  of  the  model,  an  Anglo-Norman  poem,  written  in 
rhymed  couplets  of  six  syllables,  and  wrongly  attributed 
to  Walter  Map.  With  it  should  go  the  Debate  entre  el 
Agua  y  el  Vino  (Debate  between  Water  and  Wine),  and 
the  first  Castilian  lyric,  Razon  feita  cfAmor  (the  Lay  of 
Love).  Composed  in  verses  of  nine  syllables,  the  poem 
deals  with  the  meeting  of  two  lovers,  their  colloquy, 
interchanges,  and  separation.  Both  pieces,  discovered 
within  the  last  seventeen  years  by  M.  Morel-Fatio,  are 
the  productions  of  a  single  mind.  It  is  tempting  to 
identify  the  writer  with  the  Lope  de  Moros  mentioned 
in  the  final  line,  "Lupus  me  fe$it  de  Moros"  \  still  the 
likelihood  is  that,  here  as  elsewhere,  the  copyist  has  but 
signed  his  transcription.  Whoever  the  author  may 
have  been  —  and  the  internal  evidence  tends  to  show 
that  he  was  a  clerk  familiar  with  French,  Provencal, 
Italian,  or  Portuguese  exemplars — he  shines  by  virtue 
of  qualities  which  are  akin  to  genius.  His  delicacy  and 
variety  of  sentiment,  his  finish  of  workmanship,  his 
deliberate  lyrical  effects,  announce  the  arrival  of  the 
equipped  artist,  the  craftsman  no  longer  content  with 


56  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

rhymed  narration,  the  singer  with  a  personal,  distinctive 
note.  Here  was  a  poet  who  recognised  that  in  literature 
— the  least  moral  of  the  arts — the  end  justifies  the 
means  ;  hence  he  transformed  the  material  which  he 
borrowed,  made  it  his  own  possession,  and  conveyed 
into  Castile  a  new  method  adapted  to  her  needs.  But 
time  and  language  were  not  yet  ripe,  and  the  Spanish 
lyric  flourished  solely  in  Galicia  :  it  was  not  to  be  trans- 
planted at  a  first  attempt.  Yet  the  attempt  was  worth 
the  trial ;  for  it  closes  the  anonymous  period  with  a 
triumph  to  which,  if  we  except  the  Poema  del  Cidt  it 
can  show  no  fellow. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE  AGE  OF  ALFONSO  THE  LEARNED,  AND 
OF  SANCHO 

1220-1300 

IF  we  reject  the  claim  of  Lope  de  Moros  to  be  the 
author  of  the  Razon  feita  a"  A  mor,  the  first  Castilian  poet 
whose  name  reaches  us  is  GONZALO  DE  BERCEO  (?ii98- 
?  1264),  a  secular  priest  attached  to  the  Benedictine 
monastery  of  San  Millan  de  la  Cogolla,  in  the  diocese  of 
Calahorra.  A  few  details  are  known  of  him.  He  was 
certainly  a  deacon  in  1220,  and  his  name  occurs  in 
documents  between  1237  and  1264.  He  speaks  of  his 
advanced  age  in  the  Vida  de  Santa  Oria,  Virgen,  his  latest 
and  perhaps  most  finished  work ;  and  his  birthplace, 
Berceo,  is  named  in  his  Historia  del  Setter  San  Milldn 
de  Cogolla,  as  in  his  rhymed  biography  of  St.  Dominic  of 
Silas.  His  copiousness  runs  to  some  thirteen  thousand 
lines,  including,  besides  the  works  already  named,  the 
Sacrificio  de  la  Misa  (Sacrifice  of  the  Mass),  the  Martirio 
de  San  Lorenzo  (Martyrdom  of  St.  Lawrence),  the  Loores 
de  Nuestra  Settora  (Praises  of  Our  Lady),  the  Signos  que 
aparscerdn  ante  del  Juicio  (Signs  visible  before  the  Judg- 
ment), the  Milagros  de  Nuestra  Senora  (Miracles  of  Our 
Lady),  the  Duelo  que  hizo  la  Virgen  Maria  el  dia  de  la 
Pasidn  de  su  hijo  Jesucristo  (The  Virgin's  Lament  on  the 
day  of  her  Son's  Passion),  and  three  hymns  to  the 

57 


58  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Holy  Ghost,  the  Virgin,  and  God  the  Father.  In  most 
editions  of  Berceo  there  is  appended  to  his  verses  a  poem 
in  his  praise,  attributed  to  an  unknown  writer  of  the 
fourteenth  century.  This  poem  is,  in  fact,  conjectured 
to  be  an  invention  of  Tomas  Antonio  Sanchez,  the 
earliest  editor  of  Berceo's  complete  works  (1779).  The 
chances  are  that  Berceo  and  his  writings  had  passed  out 
of  remembrance  within  two  hundred  years  of  his  death, 
and  he  was  evidently  unknown  to  Santillana  in  the 
fifteenth  century.  But  a  brief  extract  from  him  is  given 
in  the  Mois/n  Segundo  (Second  Moses)  of  Ambrosio 
G6mez,  published  in  1653.  With  the  exception  of  the 
Martirio  de  San  Lorenzo,  of  which  the  end  is  lost,  all 
Berceo's  writings  have  been  preserved,  and  he  suffers 
by  reason  of  his  exuberance. 

He  sings  in  the  vernacular,  he  declares,  being  too 
unlearned  in  the  Latin  ;  but  he  has  his  little  pretensions. 
Though  he  calls  himself  -zjuglar,  he  marks  the  differences 
between  his  dictados  (poems)  and  the  cantares  (songs) 
of  a  plain  juglar,  and  he  vindicates  his  title  by  that 
monotonous  metre — the  cuaderna  via — which  was  taken 
up  in  the  Libro  de  Apolonio  and  became  the  model 
of  all  learned  clerks  in  the  next  generations.  Berceo 
uses  the  rhythm  with  success,  and  if  his  results  are  not 
splendid,  it  was  not  because  he  lacked  perseverance. 
On  the  contrary,  his  industry  was  only  too  formidable. 
And,  as  a  little  of  the  mono-rhymed  quatrain  goes  far, 
he  must  have  perished  had  he  depended  upon  execution. 
Beside  Dante's  achievement,  as  Puymaigre  notes,  the 
paraphrases  of  Berceo  in  the  Sacrificio  de  la  Misa  (stanzas 
250-266)  seem  thin  and  pale  ;  but  the  comparison  is 
unfair  to  the  earlier  Castilian  singer,  who  died  in  his 
obscure  hamlet  without  the  advantage  of  Dante's  splendid 


BERCEO  59 

literary  tradition.  Berceo  is  hampered  by  his  lack  of 
imagination,  by  the  poverty  of  his  conditions,  by  the 
absence  of  models,  by  the  narrow  circle  of  his  sub- 
jects, and  by  the  pious  scruples  which  hindered  him 
from  arabesquing  the  original  design.  Yet  he  pos- 
sesses the  gifts  of  simplicity  and  of  unction,  and  amid 
his  long  digressions  into  prosy  theological  commonplace 
there  are  flashes  of  mystic  inspiration  unmatched  by 
any  other  poet  of  his  country  and  his  time.  Even 
when  his  versification,  clear  but  hard,  is  at  its  worst, 
he  accomplishes  the  end  which  he  desires  by  popular- 
ising the  pious  legends  which  were  dear  to  him.  He 
was  not — never  could  have  been — a  great  poet.  But  in 
his  own  way  he  was,  if  not  an  inventor,  the  chief  of  a 
school,  and  the  necessary  predecessor  of  such  devout 
authors  as  Luis  de  Leon  and  St.  Teresa.  He  was  a 
pioneer  in  the  field  of  devout  pastoral,  with  all  the 
defects  of  the  inexperienced  explorer ;  and,  for  the  most 
part,  he  had  nothing  to  guide  him  but  his  own  uncul- 
tured instinct.  Some  specimen  of  his  work  may  be 
given  in  Hookham  Frere's  little-known  fragmentary 
version  of  the  Vida  de  San  Milldn  : — 

"  He  walked  those  mountains  -wild,  and  lived  within  that  nook 
For  forty  years  and  more,  nor  ever  comfort  took 
Of  offered  food  or  alms,  or  human  speech  a  lookj 
No  other  saint  in  Spain  did  such  a  penance  brook. 

For  many  a  painful  year  he  pass' d  the  seasons  there, 
And  many  a  night  consumed  in  penitence  and  prayer — 
In  solitude  and  cold,  with  want  and  evil  fare, 
His  thoughts  to  God-resigned,  and  free  from  human  care. 

Oh  !  sacred  is  the  place,  the  fountain  and  the  hill, 
The  rocks  where  he  reposed,  in  meditation  still, 
The  solitary  shades  through  which  he  roved  at  will ; 
His  presence  all  that  place  with  sanctity  did  fill? 


60  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

This  is  Berceo  in  a  very  characteristic  vein,  dealing 
with  his  own  special  saint  in  his  chosen  way — the  way 
of  the  "  new  mastery  "  ;  and  he  keeps  to  the  same  rhythm 
in  the  nine  hundred  odd  stanzas  which  he  styles  the 
Milagros  de  Nuestra  Seftora.  Here  his  devotion  inspires 
him  to  more  conscientious  effort ;  and  it  has  been  sought 
to  show  that  Berceo  takes  his  tales  as  he  finds  them  in 
the  Miracles  de  la  Sainte  Vierge,  by  the  French  trouvere, 
Gautier  de  Coinci,  Prior  of  Vic-sur-Aisne  (1177-1236). 
Certain  it  is  that  Gautier's  source,  the  Soissons  manu- 
script, was  known  to  Alfonso  the  Learned,  who  men- 
tions it  in  the  sixty-first  of  his  Galician  songs  as  "  a 
book  full  of  miracles  "  : — 

"  En  Seixons  .  .  .  un  liuro  a  todo  cheo 
de  miragres." 

There  were  doubtless  earlier  Latin  collections  — 
amongst  others,  Vincent  de  Beauvais'  Speculum  histo- 
riale  and  Pothon's  Liber  de  miraculis  Sanct<z  Dei  Genitricis 
Maria — which  both  Berceo  and  Alfonso  used.  But  since 
Alfonso,  a  middle-aged  man  when  Berceo  died,  knew 
the  Soissons  collection,  it  seems  possible  that  Berceo 
also  handled  it.  A  close  examination  of  his  text  con- 
verts the  bare  possibility  into  something  approaching 
certainty.  Of  Berceo's  twenty-five  Marian  legends, 
eighteen  are  given  by  Gautier  de  Coinci,  whose  total 
reaches  fifty-five.  This  is  not  by  itself  final,  for  both 
writers  might  have  selected  them  from  a  common 
source.  Yet  there  are  convincing  proofs  of  imitation  in 
the  coincidences  of  thought  and  expression  which  are 
apparent  in  Gautier  and  Berceo.  These  are  too  nume- 
rous to  be  accidental  ;  and  still  more  weight  must  be 
given  to  the  fact  that  in  several  cases  where  Gautier 


BERCEO  6 1 

invents  a  detail  of  his  own  wit,  Berceo  reproduces  it. 
Taken  in  conjunction  with  his  known  habit  of  strict 
adherence  to  his  text,  it  follows  that  Berceo  took  Gautier 
for  his  guide.  He  did  what  all  the  world  was  doing  in 
borrowing  from  the  French,  and  in  the  Virgin's  Lament 
he  has  the  candour  to  confess  the  northern  supremacy. 

Still,  it  would  be  wrong  to  think  that  Berceo  con- 
tents himself  with  mere  servile  reproduction,  or  that  he 
trespasses  in  the  manner  of  a  vulgar  plagiary.  Seven 
of  his  legends  he  seeks  elsewhere  than  in  Gautier, 
and  he  takes  it  upon  himself  to  condense  his  prede- 
cessor's diffuse  narration.  Thus,  where  Gautier  needs 
1350  lines  to  tell  the  legend  of  St.  Ildefonsus,  or  2090 
to  give  the  miracle  of  Theophilus,  Berceo  confines  him- 
self to  108  and  to  657  lines.  Gautier  will  spare  you 
no  detail ;  he  will  have  you  know  the  why,  the  when, 
the  how,  the  paltriest  circumstance  of  his  pious  story. 
Beside  him  Berceo  shines  by  his  power  of  selection, 
by  his  finer  instinct  for  the  essential,  by  his  relative 
sobriety  of  tone,  by  his  realistic  eye,  by  his  variety  of 
resource  in  pure  Castilian  expression,  by  his  richer 
melody,  and  by  the  fleeter  movement  of  his  action.  In 
a  word,  with  all  his  imperfections,  Berceo  approves  him- 
self the  sounder  craftsman  of  the  two,  and  therefore  he 
finds  thirty  readers  where  the  Prior  of  Vic-sur-Aisne 
finds  one.  Small  and  few  as  his  opportunities  were,  he 
rarely  failed  to  use  them  to  an  advantage  ;  as  in  the 
invention  of  the  singular  rhymed  octosyllabic  song — with 
its  haunting  refrain,  Eya  velar  ! — in  the  Virgin's  Lament 
(stanzas  170-198).  This  argues  a  considerable  lyrical 
gift,  and  the  pity  is  that  the  most  of  Berceo's  editors 
should  have  been  at  such  pains  to  hide  it  from  the 
reader. 


62  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

In  the  ten  thousand  lines  of  the  Libra  de  Alexandre 
are  recounted  the  imaginary  adventures  of  the  Mace- 
donian king,  as  told  in  Gautier  de  Lille's  Alexandras  and 
in  the  versions  of  Lambert  de  Tort  and  Alexandre  de 
Bernai.  Traces  of  the  Leonese  dialect  negative  the 
ascription  to  Berceo,  and  the  Juan  Lorenzo  Segura  de 
Astorga  mentioned  in  the  last  verses  is  a  mere  copyist. 
The  Poema  de  Ferndn  Gonzalez,  due  to  a  monk  of  San 
Pedro  de  Arlanza,  embodies  many  picturesque  and 
primitive  legends  in  Berceo's  manner.  But  the  value 
of  both  these  compositions  is  slight. 

So  much  for  verse.  Castilian  prose  develops  on  paral- 
lel lines  with  it.  A  very  early  specimen  is  the  didactic 
treatise  called  the  Diez  Mandamientos,  written  by  a  Navar- 
rese  monk,  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
for  the  use  of  confessors.  Somewhat  later  follow  the 
Anales  Toledanos,  in  two  separate  parts  (the  third  is  much 
more  recent),  composed  between  the  years  1220  and  1250. 
Rodrigo  Jimdnez  de  Rada,  Archbishop  of  Toledo  (1170- 
1247),  wrote  a  Latin  Historia  Gothica,  which  begins  with 
the  Gothic  invasion,  and  ends  at  the  year  1 243.  Under- 
taken at  the  bidding  of  St.  Ferdinand  of  Castile,  this 
work  was  summarised,  and  done  into  Castilian,  probably 
by  Jimenez  de  Rada  himself,  under  the  title  of  the  His- 
toria de  los  Godos.  Its  date  would  be  the  fourth  decade 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  to  this  same  time  (1241) 
belongs  the  Fuero  Juzgo  (Forum  Judicuni).  This  is  a 
Castilian  version  of  a  code  of  so-called  Gothic  laws,  sub- 
stantially Roman  in  origin,  given  by  St.  Ferdinand  (1200- 
1252)  to  the  Spaniards  settle'd  in  C6rdoba  and  other 
southern  cities  after  the  reconquest;  but  though  of  ex- 
treme value  to  the  philologer,  its  literary  interest  is  too 
slight  to  detain  us  here.  Two  most  brilliant  specimens  of 


ALFONSO  THE  LEARNED  63 

early  Spanish  prose  are  the  letters  supposed  to  have 
been  written  by  the  dying  Alexander  to  his  mother  ;  and 
the  accident  of  their  being  found  in  the  manuscript  copied 
by  Lorenzo  Segura  de  Astorga  has  led  to  their  being 
printed  at  the  end  of  the  Libra  de  Alexandre.  There  is 
good  reason  for  thinking  that  they  are  not  by  the  author 
of  that  poem ;  and,  in  truth,  they  are  mere  transla- 
tions. Both  letters  are  taken  from  Hunain  ibn  Ishdk 
al-'Ibddl's  Arabic  collection  of  moral  sentences;  the 
first  is  found  in  the  Boniunt  (so  called  from  its  author,  a 
mythical  King  of  Persia),  and  the  second  on  the  Castilian 
version  of  the  Secretum  Secretorum,  of  which  the  very 
title  is  reproduced  as  Poridat  de  las  Poridades.  Further 
examples  of  progressive  prose  are  found  in  the  Libro  de 
los  doce  Sabios,  which  deals  with  the  political  education 
of  princes,  and  may  have  been  drawn  up  by  the  direction 
of  St.  Ferdinand.  But  the  authorship  and  date  of  these 
compilations  are  little  better  than  conjectural. 

These  are  the  preliminary  essays  in  the  stuff  of  Spanish 
prose.  Its  permanent  form  was  received  at  the  hands 
of  ALFONSO  THE  LEARNED  (1226-84),  who  followed  his 
father,  St.  Ferdinand,  to  the  Castilian  throne  in  1252.  Un- 
lucky in  his  life,  balked  of  his  ambition  to  wear  the  title 
of  Emperor,  at  war  with  Popes,  his  own  brothers,  his  chil- 
dren, and  his  people,  Alfonso  has  been  hardly  entreated 
after  death.  Mariana,  the  greatest  of  Spanish  historians, 
condenses  the  vulgar  verdict  in  a  Tacitean  phrase  :  Dum 
ccelum  considerat  terra  amissit.  A  mountain  of  libellous 
myth  has  overlaid  Alfonso's  fame.  Of  all  the  anecdotes 
concerning  him,  the  best  known  is  that  which  reports 
him  as  saying,  "  Had  God  consulted  me  at  the  crea- 
tion of  the  world,  He  would  have  made  it  differently." 
This  deliberate  invention  is  due  to  Pedro  IV.  (the  Cere- 


64  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

monious) ;  and  if  Pedro  foresaw  the  result,  he  must  have 
been  a  scoundrel  of  genius.  Fortunately,  nothing  can 
rob  Alfonso  of  his  right  to  be  considered,  not  only  as 
the  father  of  Castilian  verse,  but  as  the  centre  of  all 
Spanish  intellectual  life.  Political  disaster  never  caused 
his  intellectual  activity  to  slacken.  Like  Bacon,  he  took 
all  knowledge  for  his  province,  and  in  every  department 
he  shone  pre-eminent.  Astronomy,  music,  philosophy, 
canon  and  civil  law,  history,  poetry,  the  study  of  lan- 
guages :  he  forced  his  people  upon  these  untrodden 
roads.  To  catalogue  the  series  of  his  scientific  enter- 
prises, and  to  set  down  the  names  of  his  Jewish  and 
Arab  collaborators,  would  give  ample  work  to  a  biblio- 
grapher. Both  the  Tablas  Alfonsis  and  the  colossal 
Libros  del  Saber  de  Astronomla  (Books  on  the  Science 
of  Astronomy)  are  packed  with  minute  corrections  of 
Ptolemy,  in  whose  system  the  learned  King  seems  to 
have  suspected  an  error ;  but  their  present  interest  lies 
in  the  historic  fact,  that  with  their  compilation  Castilian 
makes  its  first  great  stride  in  the  direction  of  exactitude 
and  clearness. 

Similar  qualities  of  precision  and  ease  were  developed 
in  encyclopaedic  treatises  like  the  Septenario^  which, 
together  with  the  Fuero  Juzgo,  Alfonso  drew  up  in  his 
father's  lifetime ;  and  in  practical  guides  such  as  the 
Juegos  de  A$edrex,  Dados,  et  Tablas  (Book  of  Chess,  Dice, 
and  Chequers).  This  miraculous  activity  astounded 
contemporaries,  and  posterity  has  multiplied  the  wonder 
by  attributing  well-nigh  every  possible  anonymous  work 
to  the  man  whose  real  activity  is  a  marvel.  It  has  been 

1  So  called  because  it  embraced  the  seven  subjects  of  learning :  the  trivia 
(grammar,  logic,  and  rhetoric),  and  the  quadrivio  (music,  astrology,  physics, 
and  metaphysics). 


ALFONSO  THE  LEARNED  65 

sought  to  prove  him  the  author  of  the  Libra  de  Alex- 
andre,  the  writer  of  Alexander's  Letters,  the  compiler 
of  treatises  on  the  chase,  the  translator  of  Kalilah  and 
Dimnah,  and  innumerable  more  pieces.  Not  one  of 
these  can  be  brought  home  to  him,  and  some  belong 
to  a  later  time.  Ticknor,  again,  foists  on  Alfonso  two 
separate  works  each  entitled  the  Tesoro,  and  the  author- 
ship has  been  accepted  upon  that  authority.  It  is 
therefore  necessary  to  state  the  real  case.  The  one 
Tesoro  is  a  prose  translation  of  Brunette  Latini's  Li 
Livres  dou  Tre"sor  made  by  Alfonso  de  Paredes  and 
Pero  Gomez,  respectively  surgeon  and  secretary  at  the 
court  of  Sancho,  Alfonso's  son  and  successor ;  the 
other  Tesoro,  with  its  prose  preamble  and  forty-eight 
stanzas,  is  a  forgery  vamped  by  some  parasite  in  the 
train  of  Alonso  Carrillo,  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  during 
the  fifteenth  century. 

Alonso  de  Fuentes,  writing  three  hundred  years  after 
Alfonso's  death,  names  him  as  author  of  a  celebrated 
romance — "/  left  behind  my  native  land"  \  the  rhythm 
and  accentuation  prove  the  lines  to  belong  to  a  fifteenth- 
century  maker  whose  attribution  of  them  to  the  King  is 
palpably  dramatic.  Great  authorities  accept  as  authen- 
tic the  Libra  de  Querellas  (Book  of  Plaints),  which  is 
represented  by  two  fine  stanzas  addressed  to  Diego 
Sarmiento,  "  brother  and  friend  and  vassal  leal "  of 
"him  whose  foot  was  kissed  by  kings,  him  from  whom 
queens  sought  alms  and  grace."  One  is  sorry  to  lose 
them,  but  they  must  be  rejected.  No  such  book  is 
known  to  any  contemporary ;  the  twelve  -  syllabled 
octave  in  which  the  stanzas  are  written  was  not  in- 
vented till  a  hundred  years  later ;  and  these  two  stanzas 
are  simply  fabrications  by  Pellicer,  who  first  published 


66  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

them  in  the  seventeenth  century  in  his  Memoir  on  the 
House  of  Sarmiento,  with  a  view  to  flattering  his  patron. 

This  to  some  extent  clears  the  ground :  but  not 
altogether.  Setting  aside  minor  legal  and  philosophic 
treatises  which  Alfonso  may  have  supervised,  it  remains 
to  speak  of  more  important  matters.  A  great  achieve- 
ment is  the  code  called,  from  the  number  of  its  divisions, 
the  Siete  Partidas  (Seven  Parts).  This  name  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  attached  to  the  code  till  a  hundred 
years  after  its  compilation ;  but  it  may  be  worth  ob- 
serving that  the  notion  is  implied  in  the  name  of  the 
SeptenariOj  and  that  Alfonso,  regarding  the  number 
seven  as  something  of  mysterious  potency,  exhausts 
himself  in  citing  precedents — the  seven  days  of  the 
week,  seven  metals,  seven  arts,  seven  years  that  Jacob 
served,  seven  lean  years  in  Egypt,  the  seven-branched 
candlestick,  seven  sacraments,  and  so  on.  The  trait  is 
characteristic  of  the  time.  It  would  be  a  grave  mis- 
take to  suppose  that  the  Siete  Partidas  in  any  way 
resembles  a  modern  book  of  statutes,  couched  in  the 
technical  jargon  of  the  law.  Its  primary  object  was 
the  unification  of  the  various  clashing  systems  of  law 
which  Alfonso  encountered  within  his  unsettled  king- 
dom ;  and  this  he  accomplished  with  such  success 
that  all  subsequent  Spanish  legislation  derives  from 
the  Siete  Partidas,  which  are  still  to  some  extent  in 
force  in  the  republican  states  of  Florida  and  Louisiana. 
But  the  design  soon  outgrows  mere  practical  purpose, 
and  expands  into  dissertations  upon  general  principles 
and  the  pettier  details  of  conduct. 

Sancho  Panza,  as  Governor  of  Barataria,  could  not 
have  bettered  the  counsels  of  the  Siete  Partidas,  whose 
very  titles  force  a  smile  :  "  What  things  men  should 


ALFONSO'S  COLLABORATORS  67 

blush  to  confess,  and  what  not"  "  Why  no  monk 
should  study  law  or  physics,"  "Why  the  King  should 
abstain  from  low  talk,"  "  Why  the  King  should  eat  and 
drink  moderately,"  "  Why  the  King's  children  should  be 
taught  to  be  cleanly,"  "  How  to  draw  a  will  so  that  the 
witnesses  shall  not  know  its  tenor,"  with  other  less 
prudish  discussions.  The  reading  of  this  code  is  not 
merely  instructive  and  curious ;  apart  from  its  dry 
humouristic  savour,  the  Siete  Partidas  rises  to  a  noble 
eloquence  when  the  subject  is  the  common  weal,  the 
office  of  the  ruler,  his  relations  to  his  people,  and  the 
interdependence  of  Church  and  State.  No  man,  by  his 
single  effort,  could  draw  a  code  of  such  intricacy  and 
breadth,  and  it  is  established  that  Jacobo  Ruiz  and 
Fernan  Martinez  laboured  on  it ;  but  Alfonso's  is  the 
supreme  intelligence  which  appoints  and  governs,  and 
his  is  the  revising  hand  which  leaves  the  text  in  its 
perfect  verbal  form. 

In  history,  too,  Alfonso  sought  distinction  ;_  and  he 
found  it.  The  Crdnica  or  Estoria  de  Espanna,  com- 
posed between  the  years  1260  and  1268,  the  General  e 
grand  Estoria,  begun  in  1270,  owe  to  him  their  inspira- 
tion. The  latter,  ranging  from  the  Creation  to  Apo- 
stolic times,  glances  at  such  secular  events  as  the 
Babylonian  Empire  and  the  fall  of  Troy ;  the  former 
extends  from  the  peopling  of  Europe  by  the  sons  of 
Japhet  to  the  death  of  St.  Ferdinand.  Rodrigo  Jimenez 
de  Rada  and  Lucas  de  Tuy  are  the  direct  authorities, 
and  their  testimonies  are  completed  by  elaborate  refer- 
ences that  stretch  from  Pliny  to  the  cantares  de  gesta. 
Moreover,  the  Arab  chronicles  are  avowedly  utilised  in 
the  account  of  the  Cid's  exploits  :  "thus  says  Abenfarax 
in  his  Arabic  whence  this  history  is  derived."  A  singular 


68  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

circumstance  is  the  inferiority  of  style  in  these  render- 
ings from  the  Arabic.  Elsewhere  a  strange  ignorance 
of  Arabs  and  their  history  is  shown  by  the  compiler's 
inclusion  of  such  fables  as  Muhammad's  crusade  in 
Cordoba.  The  inevitable  conclusion  is  that  the  Esto- 
rt'as,  like  the  Siete  Partidas,  are  compilations  by  several 
hands ;  and  the  idea  is  supported  by  the  fact  that  the 
prologue  to  the  Estoria  de  Espanna  is  scarcely  more 
than  a  translation  of  Jimenez  de  Rada's  preface. 

Late  traditions  give  the  names  of  Alfonso's  colla- 
borators in  one  or  the  other  History  as  Egidio  de 
Zamora,  Jofre  de  Loaysa,  Martin  de  Cordoba,  Suero 
Perez,  Bishop  of  Zamora,  and  Garci  Fernandez  de 
Toledo ;  and  even  though  these  attributions  be  (as 
seems  likely)  a  trifle  fantastical,  they  at  least  indicate  a 
long-standing  disbelief  in  the  unity  of  authorship.  It 
is  proved  that  Alfonso  gathered  from  C6rdoba,  Seville, 
Toledo,  and  Paris  some  fifty  experts  to  translate  Ptolemy's 
Quadri  partitum  and  other  astronomic  treatises ;  it  is 
natural  that  he  should  organise  a  similar  committee  to 
put  together  the  first  history  in  the  Castilian  language. 
Better  than  most  of  his  contemporaries,  he  knew  the 
value  of  combination.  As  with  astronomy  so  with  his- 
tory :  in  both  cases  he  conceived  the  scheme,  in  both 
cases  he  presided  at  the  redaction  and  stamped  the 
crude  stuff  with  his  distinctive  seal.  Judged  by  a 
modern  standard,  both  Estorias  lend  themselves  to  a 
cheap  ridicule ;  compared  with  their  predecessors,  they 
imply  a  finer  appreciation  of  the  value  of  testimony, 
and  this  notable  evolution  of  the  critical  sense  is 
matched  by  a  manner  that  rises  to  the  theme.  Side 
by  side  with  a  greater  care  for  chronology,  there  is  a 
keener  edge  of  patriotism  which  leads  the  compilers  to 


ALFONSO'S  CANTIGAS  69 

embody  in  their  text  whole  passages  of  lost  cantares  de 
gesta.  And  these  are  no  purple  patches  :  the  expression 
is  throughout  dignified  without  pomp,  and  easy  without 
familiarity.  Spanish  prose  sheds  much  of  its  uncouth- 
ness,  and  takes  its  definitive  form  in  such  a  passage  as 
that  upon  the  Joys  of  Spain  :  "  More  than  all,  Spain 
is  subtle,  —  ay  !  and  terrible,  right  skilled  in  conflict, 
mirthful  in  labour,  stanch  to  her  lord,  in  letters  studious, 
in  speech  courtly,  fulfilled  of  gifts ;  never  a  land  the 
earth  overlong  to  match  her  excellence,  to  rival  her 
bravery ;  few  in  the  world  as  mighty  as  she."  It  may 
be  lawful  to  believe  that  here  we  catch  the  personal 
accent  of  the  King. 

Compilations  abound  in  which  Alfonso  is  said  to  have 
shared,  but  they  are  of  less  importance  than  his  Cantigas 
de  Santa  Maria  (Canticles  of  the  Virgin) — four  hundred 
and  twenty  pieces,  written  and  set  to  music  in  the 
Virgin's  praise.  Strictly  speaking,  these  do  not  belong 
to  Castilian  literature,  being  written  in  the  elaborate 
Galician  language,  which  now  survives  as  little  better 
than  a  dialect.  But  they  must  be  considered  if  we 
are  to  form  any  just  idea  of  Alfonso's  accomplishments 
and  versatility.  At  the  outset  a  natural  question  suggests 
itself :  "  Why  should  the  King  of  Castile,  after  drawing 
up  his  code  in  Castilian,  write  his  verses  in  Galician  ? " 
The  answer  is  simple  :  "  For  the  reason  that  he  was  an 
artist."  Velazquez,  indeed,  asserts  that  Alfonso  was 
reared  in  Galicia ;  but  this  is  assertion,  not  evidence. 
The  real  motive  of  the  choice  was  the  superior  develop- 
ment of  the  Galician,  which  so  far  outpassed  the  Castilian 
in  flexibility  and  grace  as  to  invite  comparison  with  the 
Provengal.  Troubadours  in  full  flight  from  the  Albi- 
gensian  wars  found  grace  at  Alfonso's  court ;  Aimeric 


70  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

de  Belenoi,  Nat  de  Mons,  Calvo,   Riquier,  Lunel,  and 
more. 

That  Alfonso  wrote  in  Provencal  seems  probable 
enough,  especially  as  he  derides  the  incapacity  in  this 
respect  of  his  father's  trovador,  Pero  da  Ponte  ;  still,  the 
two  Provengal  pieces  which  bear  his  name  are  spurious, 
and  are  the  work  of  Nat  de  Mons  and  Riquier.  How- 
beit,  the  Provencal  spell  mastered  him,  and  drove  him  to 
reproduce  its  elaborate  rhythms.  The  first  impression 
given  by  the  Cantigas  is  one  of  unusual  metrical  re- 
source. Verses  of  four  syllables,  of  five,  octosyllabics, 
hendecasyllabics,  are  among  the  singer's  experiments. 
From  the  popular  coplas,  not  unlike  the  modern  segui- 
dillas,  he  strays  to  the  lumbering  line  of  seventeen 
syllables ;  in  five  strophes  he  commits  an  acrostic  as 
the  name  Maria;  and  half  a  thousand  years  before 
Matilda's  lover  went  to  Gottingen,  he  anticipates  Can- 
ning's freak  in  the  Anti-Jacobin  by  splitting  up  a  word 
to  achieve  a  difficult  rhyme ;  he  abuses  the  refrain  by 
insistent  repetition,  so  as  to  give  the  echo  of  a  litany, 
or  fit  the  ready-made  melody  of  a  juglar  (clxxii.) ; — 
puerilities  perhaps,  but  characteristic  of  a  school  and 
an  epoch.  Subjects  are  taken  as  they  come,  preference 
being  given  to  the  more  universal  version,  and  local 
legends  taking  a  secondary  place.  A  living  English 
poet  has  merited  great  praise  for  his  Ballad  of  a  Nun. 
Six  hundred  years  before  Mr.  Davidson,  Alfonso  gave 
six  splendid  variants  of  the  famous  story.  Two  men  of 
genius  have  treated  the  legend  of  the  statue  and  the 
ring — Prosper  Me'rimee  in  his  Vtnus  d'llle,  and  Heine  in 
Les  Dieux  en  Exile — with  splendid  effect.  Alfonso  (xlii.) 
anticipated  them  by  rendering  the  story  in  verses  of  in- 
comparable beauty,  pregnant  with  mystery  and  terror. 


KALILAH  AND   DIMNAH  71 

For  his  part,  Alfonso  rifles  Vincent  de  Beauvais,  Gautier 
de  Coinci,  Berceo,  and,  in  his  encyclopaedic  way,  borrows 
a  hint  from  the  old  Catalan  Planctus  Maria  Virginis ; 
but  his  touch  transmutes  bold  hagiology  to  measures 
of  harmony  and  distinction.  He  was  not — it  cannot 
be  claimed  for  him — a  poet  of  supreme  excellence ;  yet, 
if  he  fail  to  reach  the  topmost  peaks,  he  vindicates  his 
choice  of  a  medium  by  outstripping  his  predecessors, 
and  by  pointing  the  path  to  those  who  succeed  him. 
With  the  brain  of  a  giant  he  combined  the  heart  of 
a  little  child,  and,  technique  apart,  this  amalgam  which 
wrought  his  political  ruin  was  his  poetic  salvation. 
Still  an  artist,  even  when  he  stumbles  into  the  ditch, 
his  metrical  dexterity  persists  in  such  brutally  erotic 
and  satiric  verse  as  he  contributes  to  the  Vatican 
Cancioneiro  (Nos.  61-79).  Withal,  he  survives  by  some- 
thing better  than  mere  virtuosity  ;  for  his  simplicity  and 
sincere  enthusiasm,  sundered  from  the  prevalent  affecta- 
tion of  his  contemporaries,  ensure  him  a  place  apart. 

His  example  in  so  many  fields  of  intellectual  exercise 
was  followed.  What  part  he  took  (if  any)  in  preparing 
Kalilah  and  Dimnah  is  not  settled.  The  Spanish  ver- 
sion, probably  made  before  Alfonso's  accession  to  the 
throne,  derives  straight  from  the  Arabic,  which,  in  its  turn, 
is  rendered  by  Abd  Allah  ibn  al-Mukaffa  (754-775)  from 
Barzoyeh's  lost  PehlevI  (Old  Persian)  translations  of  the 
original  Sanskrit.  This  last  has  disappeared,  though  its 
substance  survives  in  the  remodelled  Panchatantra,  and 
from  it  descend  the  variants  that  are  found  in  almost  all 
European  literatures.  The  period  of  the  Spanish  render- 
ing is  hard  to  determine  exactly,  but  1251  is  the  generally 
accepted  date,  and  its  vogue  is  proved  by  the  use  made 
of  it  by  Raimond  de  Beziers  in  his  Latin  version  (1313). 


72  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

It  does  not  appear  to  have  been  used  by  Raimond  Lull 
(1229-1315),  the  celebrated  Doctor  tlluminatus,  in  his 
Catalan  Beast-Romance,  inserted  in  the  Libre  de  Mara- 
•velles  about  the  year  1286.  The  value  of  the  Spanish 
lies  in  the  excellence  of  the  narrative  manner,  and  in  its 
reduction  of  the  oriental  apologue  to  terms  of  the  ver- 
nacular. Alfonso's  brother,  Fadrique,  followed  the  lead 
in  his  Engannos  /  Assayamientos  de  las  Mogieres  (Crafts 
and  Wiles  of  Women),  which  is  referred  to  1253,  and  is 
translated  from  the  Arabic  version  of  a  lost  Sanskrit 
original,  after  the  fashion  of  Kalilah  and  Dimnah. 

Translation  is  continued  at  the  court  of  Alfonso's  son 
and  successor,  SANCHO  IV.  (d.  1295),  who,  as  already 
noted,  commands  a  version  of  Brunetto  Latini's  Tesoro  ; 
and  the  encyclopaedic  mania  takes  shape  in  a  work  entitled 
the  Lu$idarto,  a  series  of  one  hundred  and  six  chapters, 
which  begins  by  discussing  "What  was  the  first  thing 
in  heaven  and  earth  ? "  and  ends  with  reflections  on 
the  habits  of  animals  and  the  whiteness  of  negroes' 
teeth.  The  Gran  Conquista  de  Ultramar  (Great  Conquest 
Oversea)  is  a  perversion  of  the  history  originally  given 
by  Guillaume  de  Tyr  (d.  1184),  mixed  with  other  fabu- 
lous elements,  derived  perhaps  from  the  French,  and 
certainly  from  the  Provencal,  which  thus  comes  for 
the  first  time  in  direct  contact  with  Castilian  prose. 
The  fragmentary  Provencal  Chanson  dAntioche  which 
remains  can  scarcely  be  the  original  form  in  which 
it  was  composed  by  its  alleged  author,  Gregoire  de 
Bechada  :  at  best  it  is  a  rifacimento  of  a  previous 
draught.  But  that  it  was  used  by  the  Spanish  trans- 
lator has  been  amply  demonstrated  by  M.  Gaston  Paris. 
The  translator  has  been  identified  with  King  Sancho 
himself  ;  the  safer  opinion  is  that  the  work  was  unde» 


SANCHO  IV.  73 

taken  by  his  order  during  his  last  days,  and  was  finished 
after  his  death. 

With  these  should  be  classed  compilations  like  the 
Book  of  Good  Proverbs,  translated  from  Hunain  ibn 
Ishak  al-'Ibadl ;  the  Bonium  or  Bocados  de  Oro,  from 
the  collections  of  Abu  '1  Wafa  Mubashshir  ibn  Fatik,  part 
of  which  was  Englished  by  Lord  Rivers,  and  thence 
conveyed  into  Caxton's  Dictes  and  Sayings  of  the  Philo- 
sophers;  and  the  Flowers  of  Philosophy,  a  treatise  com- 
posed of  thirty-eight  chapters  of  fictitious  moral  sentences 
uttered  by  a  tribe  of  thinkers,  culminating — fitly  enough 
for  a  Spanish  book — in  Seneca  of  Cordoba.  In  dealing 
with  these  works  it  is  impossible  to  speak  precisely 
as  to  source  and  date  :  the  probability  is  that  they 
were  put  together  during  the  reign  of  Sancho,  who  was 
his  father's  son  in  more  than  the  literal  sense.  Like 
Alfonso's,  his  ambition  was  to  force  his  people  into 
the  intellectual  current  of  the  age,  and  in  default  of 
native  masterpieces  he  supplied  them  with  foreign  models 
whence  the  desired  masterpieces  might  proceed ;  and, 
like  his  father,  Sancho  himself  entered  the  lists  with  his 
Castigos  y  Documentos  (Admonitions  and  Exhortations), 
ninety  chapters  designed  for  the  guidance  of  his  son. 
This  production,  disfigured  by  the  ostentatious  erudition 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  is  saved  from  death  by  its  shrewd 
common-sense,  by  its  practical  counsel,  and  by  the  ad- 
mirable purity  and  lucidity  of  style  that  formed  the 
most  valuable  asset  in  Sancho's  heritage.  With  him  the 
literature  of  the  thirteenth  century  comes  to  a  dramatic 
close  :  the  turbulent  fighter,  whose  rebellion  cut  short 
his  father's  days,  becomes  the  conscientious  promoter 
of  his  father's  literary  tradition. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  DIDACTIC  AGE 
1301-1400 

ONLY  the  barest  mention  need  be  made  of  a  "clerkly 
poem"  called  the  Vida  de  San  Ildefonso  (Life  of  St.  Ilde- 
phonsus),  a  dry  narrative  of  over  a  thousand  lines,  pro- 
bably written  soon  after  1313,  when  the  saint's  feast 
was  instituted  by  the  Council  of  Penafiel.  Its  author 
declares  that  he  once  held  the  prebend  of  tTbeda,  and 
that  he  had  previously  rhymed  the  history  of  the  Mag- 
dalen. No  other  information  concerning  him  exists  ; 
nor  is  it  eagerly  sought,  for  the  Prebendary's  poem  is  a 
colourless  imitation  of  Berceo,  without  Berceo's  visitings 
of  inspiration.  More  merit  is  shown  in  the  Proverbios 
en  Rimo  de  Salomon  (Solomon's  Rhymed  Proverbs), 
moralisings  on  the  vanity  of  life,  written,  with  many 
variations,  in  the  manner  of  Berceo.  The  author  of 
these  didactic,  satiric  verses  is  announced  in  the  oldest 
manuscript  copy  as  one  Pero  G6mez,  son  of  Juan  Fer- 
nandez. He  has  been  absurdly  confounded  with  an 
ancient  "  G6mez,  trovador"  and,  more  plausibly,  with 
the  Pero  G6mez  who  collaborated  with  Paredes  in 
translating  Brunetto  Latini's  Tesoro ;  but  the  name  is 
too  common  to  allow  of  precise  opinion  as  to  the  real 
author,  whom  some  have  taken  for  Pero  Lopez  de  Ayala. 


74 


HISTORIA  DE  YUSUF  75 

Whoever  the  writer,  he  possessed  a  pleasant  gift  of 
satirical  observation,  and  a  knowledge  of  men  and 
affairs  which  he  puts  to  good  use,  with  few  lapses  upon 
the  merely  trite  and  banal. 

Of  more  singular  interest  is  the  incomplete  Poema 
de  Jose  or  Historia  de  Yusuf,  named  by  the  writer, 
Al-hadits  de  Jusuf.  This  curious  monument,  due  doubt- 
less to  some  unconverted  Mudejar  of  Toledo,  is  the 
typical  example  of  the  literature  called  aljamiada.  The 
language  is  correct  Castilian  of  the  time,  and  the 
metre,  sustained  for  312  stanzas,  is  the  right  Bercean  : 
the  peculiarity  lies  in  the  use  of  Arabic  characters 
in  the  phonetic  transcription.  A  considerable  mass 
of  such  compositions  has  been  discovered  (and  in  the 
discovery  England  has  taken  part) ;  but  of  them  all 
the  Historia  de  Yusuf  is  at  once  the  best  and  earliest. 
It  deals  with  the  story  of  Joseph  in  Egypt,  not  accord- 
ing to  the  Old  Testament  narrative,  but  in  general  con- 
formity with  the  version  found  in  the  eleventh  sura  of 
the  Ku'ran,  though  the  writer  does  not  hesitate  to  intro- 
duce variants  and  amplifications  of  his  own  invention, 
as  (stanza  31)  when  the  wolf  speaks  to  the  patriarch 
whose  son  it  is  supposed  to  have  slain.  The  persecution 
of  Joseph  by  Potiphar's  wife,  who  figures  asZulija  (Zulei- 
kah),  is  told  with  considerable  spirit,  and  the  mastery 
of  the  cuaderna  via  (the  Bercean  metre  of  four  fourteen- 
syllabled  lines  rhymed  together)  is  little  short  of  amazing 
in  a  foreigner.  At  whiles  an  Arabic  word  creeps  into 
the  text,  and  the  invocation  of  Allah,  with  which  the 
poem  opens,  is  repeated  in  later  stanzas  ;  but,  taken  as 
a  whole,  apart  from  the  oriental  colouring  inseparable 
from  the  theme,  there  is  a  marked  similarity  of  tone 
between  the  Historia  de  Yusuf  and  its  predecessors  the 


76  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

"clerkly  poems."  An  oriental  subject  handled  by  an 
Arab  gave  the  best  possible  opportunity  for  introducing 
orientalism  in  the  treatment  ;  the  occasion  is  eschewed, 
and  the  lettered  Arab  studiously  follows  in  the  wake  of 
Berceo  and  the  other  Castilian  models  known  to  him. 
There  could  scarcely  be  more  striking  evidence  of  the 
irresistible  progress  of  Castilian  modes  of  thought  and 
expression.  The  Arabic  influence,  if  it  ever  existed,  was 
already  dead. 

JUAN  Ruiz,  Archpriest  of  Hita,  near  Guadalajara,  is 
the  greatest  name  in  early  Castilian  literature.  The 
dates  of  his  birth  and  death  are  not  known.  A  line 
in  his  Libra  de  Cantares  (stanza  1484)  inclines  us  to 
believe  that,  like  Cervantes,  he  was  a  native  of  Alcala 
de  Henares  ;  but  Guadalajara  also  claims  him  for  her 
own,  and  a  certain  Francisco  de  Torres  reports  him  as 
living  there  so  late  as  1415.  This  date  is  incompatible 
with  other  ascertained  facts  in  Ruiz'  career.  We  learn 
from  a  note  at  the  end  of  his  poems  that  "  this  is  the  book 
of  the  Archpriest  of  Hita,  which  he  wrote,  being  im- 
prisoned by  order  of  the  Cardinal  Don  Gil,  Archbishop 
of  Toledo."  Now,  Gil  Albornoz  held  the  see  between 
the  years  1337  and  1367  ;  and  another  clerk,  named 
Pedro  Fernandez,  was  Archpriest  of  Hita  in  1351.  Most 
likely  Juan  Ruiz  was  born  at  the  close  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  and  died,  very  possibly  in  gaol,  before  his  suc- 
cessor was  appointed.  On  the  showing  of  his  own  writ- 
ings, Juan  Ruiz  was  a  cleric  of  irregular  life  at  a  time 
when  disorder  was  at  its  worst,  and  his  thirteen  years  in 
prison  proclaim  him  a  Goliard  of  the  loosest  kind.  He 
testifies  against  himself  with  a  splendid  candour  ;  and 
yet  there  have  been  critics  who  insisted  on  idealising 
this  libidinous  clerk  into  a  smug  Boanerges.  There  was 


JUAN  RUIZ  77 

never  a  more  grotesque  travesty,  a  more  purblind  mis- 
understanding of  facts  and  the  man. 

The  Archpriest  was  a  fellow  of  parts  and  of  infinite 
fancy.  He  does,  indeed,  allege  that  he  supplies,  "in- 
centives to  good  conduct,  injunctions  towards  salvation, 
to  be  understanded  of  the  people  and  to  enable  folk 
to  guard  against  the  trickeries  which  some  practise  in 
pursuit  of  foolish  loves."  He  comes  pat  with  a  text  from 
Scripture  quoted  for  his  own  purpose  : — " Intellectum  tibi 
dabo,  et  instruam  te  in  via  hac,  qua  gradieris."  He  passes 
from  David  to  Solomon,  and,  with  his  tongue  in  his 
cheek,  transcribes  his  versicle  : — " Initium  sapientia  timor 
Domini."  St.  John,  Job,  Cato,  St.  Gregory,  the  Decretals 
— he  calls  them  all  into  court  to  witness  his  respectable 
intention,  and  at  a  few  lines'  distance  he  unmasks  in 
a  passage  which  prudish  editors  have  suppressed : — 
"Yet,  since  it  is  human  to  sin,  if  any  choose  the  ways 
of  love  (which  I  do  not  recommend),  the  modes  thereof 
are  recounted  here  ; "  and  so  forth,  in  detail  the  reverse 
of  edifying.  Ovid's  erotic  verses  are  freely  rendered, 
the  Archpriest's  unsuccessful  battle  against  love  is  told, 
and  the  liturgy  is  burlesqued  in  the  procession  of 
"clerks  and  laymen  and  monks  and  nuns  and  duennas 
and  gleemen  to  welcome  love  into  Toledo."  The 
attempt  to  exhibit  Ruiz  as  an  edifying  citizen  is,  on 
the  face  of  it,  absurd. 

Much  that  he  wrote  is  lost,  but  the  seventeen  hundred 
stanzas  that  remain  suffice  for  any  reputation.  Juan  Ruiz 
strikes  the  personal  note  in  Castilian  literature.  To  dis- 
tinguish the  works  of  the  clerkly  masters,  to  declare  with 
certainty  that  this  Castilian  piece  was  written  by  Alfonso 
and  that  by  Sancho,  is  a  difficult  and  hazardous  matter. 
Not  so  with  Ruiz.  The  stamp  of  his  personality  is  un- 


78  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

mistakable  in  every  line.  He  was  bred  in  the  old  tradi- 
tion, and  he  long  abides  by  the  rules  of  the  mester  de 
clereda ;  but  he  handles  it  with  a  freedom  unknown 
before,  imparts  to  it  a  new  flexibility,  a  variety,  a  speed, 
a  music  beyond  all  precedent,  and  transfuses  it  with  a 
humour  which  anticipates  Cervantes.  Nay,  he  does 
more.  In  his  prose  preface  he  asserts  that  he  chiefly 
sought  to  give  examples  of  prosody,  of  rhyme  and  com- 
position : — "Daralgunas  lecciones,  2  muestra  de  versificar,  et 
rimar  et  trobar"  And  he  followed  the  bent  of  his  natural 
genius.  He  had  an  infinitely  wider  culture  than  any  of 
his  predecessors  in  verse.  All  that  they  knew  he  knew — 
and  more ;  and  he  treated  them  in  the  true  cavalier  spirit  of 
the  man  who  feels  himself  a  master.  His  famous  descrip- 
tion of  the  tent  of  love  is  manifestly  suggested  by  the 
description  of  Alexander's  tent  in  the  Libro  de  Alexandre. 
The  entire  episode  of  Dona  Endrina  is  paraphrased 
from  the  Liber  de  Amore,  attributed  to  the  Pseudo-Ovid, 
the  Auvergnat  monk  who  hides  beneath  the  name  of 
Pamphilus  Maurilianus. 

French  fableaux  were  rifled  by  Ruiz  without  a  scruple, 
though  he  had  access  to  their  great  originals  in  the  Dis- 
ciplina  clericalis  of  Petrus  Alphonsus  ;  for  to  his  mind  the 
improved  treatment  was  of  greater  worth  than  the  mere 
bald  story.  He  was  familiar  with  the  Kalilah  and  Dimnah, 
with  Fadrique's  Crafts  and  Wiles  of  Women,  perhaps 
with  the  apologues  of  Lull  and  Juan  Manuel.  Vast  as 
his  reading  was,  it  had  availed  him  nothing  without  his 
superb  temperament,  his  gift  of  using  it  to  effect.  Vaster 
still  was  his  knowledge  of  men,  his  acquaintance  with 
the  seamy  side  of  life,  his  interest  in  things  common  and 
rare,  his  observation  of  manners,  and  his  lyrical  endow- 
ment. The  name  of  "  the  Spanish  Petronius  "  has  been 


JUAN  RUIZ  79 

given  to  him  ;  yet,  despite  a  superficial  resemblance  be- 
tween the  two,  it  is  a  misnomer.  Far  nearer  the  truth, 
though  the  Spaniard  lacks  the  dignity  of  the  Englishman, 
is  Ticknor's  parallel  with  Chaucer.  Like  Chaucer,  Ruiz 
had  an  almost  incomparable  gust  for  life,  an  immitigable 
gaiety  of  spirit,  which  penetrates  his  transcription  of  the 
Human  Comedy.  Like  Chaucer,  his  adventurous  curio- 
sity led  him  to  burst  the  bonds  of  the  prison-house  and 
to  confer  upon  his  country  new  rhythms  and  metres.  His 
four  cdnticas  de  serrana,  suggested  by  the  Galician  makers, 
anticipate  by  a  hundred  years  the  serranillas  and  the 
vaqueiras  of  Santillana,  and  entitle  him  to  rank  as  the 
first  great  lyric  poet  of  Castile.  Ruiz,  likewise,  had  a 
Legend  of  Women  ;  but  his  reading  was  his  own,  and 
Chaucer's  adjective  cannot  be  applied  to  it.  His  ambi- 
tion is,  not  to  idealise,  but  to  realise  existence,  and  he 
interprets  its  sensuous  animalism  in  the  spirit  of  pica- 
resque enjoyment.  Jewesses,  Moorish  dancers,  the 
procuress  Trota-conventos,  her  finicking  customers,  the 
loose  nuns,  great  ladies,  and  brawny  daughters  of  the 
plough, — Ruiz  renders  them  with  the  merciless  exactitude 
of  Velazquez. 

The  arrangement  of  Ruiz'  verse,  disorderly  as  his  life, 
foreshadows  the  loose  construction  of  the  picaresque 
novel,  of  which  his  own  work  may  be  considered  the  first 
example.  One  of  his  greatest  discoveries  is  the  rare  value 
of  the  autobiographic  form.  Mingled  with  parodies  of 
hymns,  with  burlesques  of  old  cantares  de  gesta,  with  glori- 
fied paraphrases  of  both  Ovids  (the  true  and  the  false), 
with  versions  of  oriental  fables  read  in  books  or  gathered 
from  the  lips  of  vagrant  Arabs,  with  peculiar  wealth  of 
popular  refrains  and  proverbs — with  these  goes  the  tale 
of  the  writer's  individual  life,  rich  in  self-mockery,  gross 


8o  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

in  thought,  abundant  in  incident,  splendid  in  expression, 
slyly  edifying  in  the  moral  conclusion  which  announces 
an  immediate  relapse.  Poet,  novelist,  expert  in  observa- 
tion, irony,  and  travesty,  Ruiz  had,  moreover,  the  sense 
of  style  in  such  measure  as  none  before  him  and  few 
after  him,  and  to  this  innate  faculty  of  selection  he  joined 
a  great  capacity  for  dramatic  creation.  Hence  the  im- 
possibility of  exhibiting  him  in  elegant  extracts,  and 
hence  the  permanence  of  his  types.  The  most  familiar 
figure  of  Lazarillo  de  Tormes — the  starving  gentleman — 
is  a  lineal  descendant  of  Ruiz'  Don  Furon,  who  is  scru- 
pulous in  observing  facts  so  long  as  there  is  nothing  to 
eat ;  and  Ruiz'  two  lovers,  Melon  de  la  Uerta  and  Endrina 
de  Calatayud,  are  transferred  as  Calisto  and  Melibea  to 
Rojas'  tragi-comedy,  whence  they  pass  into  immortality 
as  Romeo  and  Juliet.  Lastly,  Ruiz'  repute  might  be 
staked  upon  his  fables,  which,  by  their  ironic  apprecia- 
tion, their  playful  wit  and  humour,  seem  to  proceed  from 
an  earlier,  ruder,  more  virile  La  Fontaine. 

Contemporary  with  Juan  Ruiz  was  the  Infante  JUAN 
MANUEL  (1282-1347),  grandson  of  St.  Ferdinand  and 
nephew  of  Alfonso  the  Learned.  In  his  twelfth  year 
he  served  against  the  Moors  on  the  Murcian  frontier, 
became  Mayordomo  to  Fernando  IV.,  and  succeeded 
to  the  regency  shortly  after  that  King's  death  in  1312. 
Mariana's  denunciation  of  "  him  who  seemed  born  solely 
to  wreck  the  state"  fits  Juan  Manuel  so  exactly  that  it 
is  commonly  applied  to  him  ;  but,  in  truth,  its  author  in- 
tended it  for  another  Don  Juan  (without  the  "  Manuel"), 
uncle  of  the  boy-king,  Alfonso  XI.  Upon  the  regency 
followed  a  spell  of  wars,  broils,  rebellions,  assassinations, 
wherein  King  and  ex-Regent  were  pitted  against  each 
other.  Neither  King  nor  soldier  bore  malice,  and  the 


JUAN  MANUEL  81 

latter  shared  in  the  decisive  victory  of  Salado  and — 
perhaps  with  Chaucer's  Gentle  Knight — in  the  siege  of 
Algezir  (Algeciras).  Fifty  years  of  battle  would  fill  most 
men's  lives ;  but  the  love  of  literature  ran  in  the  blood 
of  Juan  Manuel's  veins,  and,  like  others  of  his  kindred, 
he  proved  the  truth  of  the  old  Castilian  adage  : — "  Lance 
never  blunted  pen,  nor  pen  lance." 

He  set  a  proper  value  on  himself  and  his  achievement. 
In  the  General  Introduction  to  his  works  he  foresees,  so 
he  announces,  that  his  books  must  be  often  copied,  and  he 
knows  that  this  means  error: — "as  I  have  seen  happen  in 
other  copies,  either  because  of  the  transcriber's  dulness, 
or  because  the  letters  are  much  alike."  Wherefore  Juan 
Manuel  prepared,  so  to  say,  a  copyright  edition,  with 
a  prefatory  bibliography,  whose  deficiencies  may  be 
supplemented  by  a  second  list  given  at  the  beginning 
of  his  Conde  Lucanor.  And  he  closes  his  General 
Introduction  with  this  prayer: — "And  I  beg  all  those 
who  may  read  any  of  the  books  I  made  not  to  blame 
me  for  whatever  ill-written  thing  they  find,  until  they 
see  it  in  this  volume  which  I  myself  have  arranged." 
His  care  seemed  excessive  :  it  proved  really  insufficient, 
since  the  complete  edition  which  he  left  to  the  monastery 
at  Penafiel  has  disappeared.  Some  of  his  works  are  lost 
to  us,  as  the  Book  of  Chivalry f  a  treatise  dealing  with 
the  Engines  of  War,  a  Book  of  Verses,  the  Art  of  Poetic 
Composition  (Rpglas  como  se  debe  Trovar),  and  the  Book 
of  Sages.  The  loss  of  the  Book  of  Verses  is  a  real 
calamity ;  all  the  more  that  it  existed  at  Penafiel  as 
recently  as  the  time  of  Argote  de  Molina  (1549-90), 
who  meant  to  publish  it.  Juan  Manuel's  couplets  and 

1  The  contents  of  this  work  are  summarised  in  the  author's  Book  of  States 
(chap.  xci.). 


82  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

quatrains  of  four,  eight,  eleven,  twelve,  and  fourteen 
syllables,  his  arrangement  (Enxemplo  XVI.}  of  the  octo- 
syllabic redondilla  in  the  Conde  Lucanor,  prove  him  an 
adept  in  the  Galician  form,  an  irreproachable  virtuoso  in 
his  art.  It  seems  almost  certain  that  his  Book  of  Verses 
included  many  remarkable  exercises  in  political  satire ; 
and,  in  any  case,  his  example  and  position  must  have 
greatly  influenced  the  development  of  the  courtly  school 
of  poets  at  Juan  II.'s  court. 

A  treatise  like  his  Libra  de  Caza  (Book  of  Hawking), 
recently  recovered  by  Professor  Baist,  needs  but  to 
be  mentioned  to  indicate  its  aim.  His  histories  are 
mere  epitomes  of  Alfonso's  chronicle.  The  Libra  det 
Caballero  et  del  Escudero  (Book  of  the  Knight  and 
Squire),  in  fifty-one  chapters,  of  which  some  thirteen 
are  missing,  is  a  didacticism,  a  fabliella,  modelled  upon 
Ram6n  Lull's  Libre  del  Orde  de  Cavalleria.  A  hermit 
who  has  abandoned  war  instructs  an  ambitious  squire 
in  the  virtues  of  chivalry,  and  sends  him  to  court,  whence 
he  returns  "with  much  wealth  and  honour."  The 
inquiry  begins  anew,  and  the  hermit  expounds  to  his 
companion  the  nature  of  angels,  paradise,  hell,  the 
heavens,  the  elements,  the  art  of  posing  questions,  the 
stuff  of  the  planets,  sea,  earth,  and  all  that  is  therein 
— birds,  fish,  plants,  trees,  stones,  and  metals.  In  some 
sort  the  Tratado  sobre  las  Armas  (Treatise  on  Arms)  is 
a  memoir  of  the  writer's  house,  containing  a  powerful 
presentation  of  the  death  of  Juan  Manuel's  guardian, 
King  Sancho,  passing  to  eternity  beneath  his  father's 
curse. 

Juan  Manuel  follows  Sancho's  example  by  prepar- 
ing twenty  -  six  chapters  of  Castigos  (Exhortations), 
sometimes  called  the  Libra  infinido,  or  Unfinished 


JUAN  MANUEL  83 

Book,  addressed  to  his  son,  a  boy  of  nine.  He  repro- 
duces Sancho's  excellent  manner  and  sound  practical 
advice  without  the  flaunting  erudition  of  his  cousin. 
The  Castigos  are  suspended  to  supply  the  monk,  Juan 
Alfonso,  with  a  treatise  on  the  Modes  of  Love,  fifteen  in 
number  ;  being,  in  fact,  an  ingenious  discussion  on  friend- 
ship. Juan  Manuel  is  seen  almost  at  his  best  in  his  Libra 
de  los  Estados  (Book  of  States),  otherwise  the  Book  of  the 
Infante,  and  thought  by  some  to  be  the  missing  Book 
of  Sages.  The  allegorical  didactic  vein  is  worked  to 
exhaustion  in  one  hundred  and  fifty  chapters,  which 
relate  the  education  of  the  pagan  Morovan's  son, 
Johas,  by  a  certain  Turin,  who,  unable  to  satisfy  his 
pupil,  calls  to  his  aid  the  celebrated  preacher  Julio. 
After  interminable  discussions  and  resolutions  of  theo- 
logical difficulties,  the  story  ends  in  the  baptism  of 
father,  son,  and  tutor.  Gayangos  gives  us  the  key ; 
Johas  is  Juan  Manuel ;  Morovan  is  his  father,  Manuel  : 
Turin  is  Pero  L6pez  de  Ayala,  grandfather  of  the  future 
Chancellor ;  and  Julio  represents  St.  Dominic  (who,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  died  before  Juan  Manuel's  father  was 
born).  This  confused  philosophic  story,  suggestive  of 
the  legend  of  Barlaam  and  Josaphat,  is  in  truth  the 
vehicle  for  conveying  the  author's  ideas  on  every  sort 
of  question,  and  it  might  be  described  without  injustice 
as  the  carefully  revised  commonplace  book  of  an  omni- 
vorous reader  with  a  care  for  form.  A  postscript  to  the 
Book  of  States  is  the  Book  of  Preaching  Friars,  a  summary 
of  the  Dominican  constitution  expounded  by  Julio  to 
his  pupil.  A  very  similar  dissertation  is  the  Treatise 
shoiving  that  the  Blessed  Mary  is,  body  and  soul,  in  Paradise, 
directed  to  Remon  Masquefa,  Prior  of  Penafiel. 

Juan  Manuel's  masterpiece  is  the  Conde  Lucanor  (also 


84  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

named  the  Book  of  Patronio  and  the  Book  of  Examples), 
in  four  parts,  the  first  of  which  is  divided  into  fifty-one 
chapters.  Like  the  Decamerone,  like  the  Canterbury  Tales 
— but  with  greater  directness — the  Conde  Lucanor  is  the 
oriental  apologue  embellished  in  terms  of  the  vernacular. 
The  convention  of  the  "  moral  lesson  "  is  maintained,  and 
each  chapter  of  the  First  Part  (the  others  are  rather  un- 
finished notes)  ends  with  a  declaration  to  the  effect 
that  "when  Don  Johan  heard  this  example  he  found  it 
good,  ordered  it  to  be  set  down  in  this  book,  and  added 
these  verses" — the  verses  being  a  concise  summary  of 
the  prose.  The  Conde  Lucanor  is  the  Spanish  equivalent 
of  the  Arabian  Nights,  with  Patronio  in  the  part  of 
Scheherazade,  and  Count  Lucanor  (as  who  should  say 
Juan  Manuel)  as  the  Caliph.  Boccaccio  used  the  frame- 
work first  in  Italy,  but  Juan  Manuel  was  before  him  by 
six  years,  for  the  Conde  Lucanor  was  written  not  later  than 
1342.  The  examples  are  taken  from  experience,  and 
are  told  with  extraordinary  narrative  skill.  Simplicity  of 
theme  is  matched  by  simplicity  of  expression.  The  story 
of  father  and  son  (Enxemplo  //.),  of  the  Dean  of  Santiago 
and  the  Toledan  Magician  {Enxemplo  XI.},  of  Ferrant 
Gonzalez  and  Nufto  Laynez,  a  model  of  dramatic  pre- 
sentation {Enxemplo  XVI.},  are  perfect  masterpieces  in 
little. 

Juan  Manuel  is  an  innovator  in  Castilian  prose,  as 
is  Juan  Ruiz  in  Castilian  verse.  He  lacks  the  merri- 
ment, the  genial  wit  of  the  Archpriest ;  but  he  has  the 
same  gift  of  irony,  with  an  added  note  of  cutting  sarcasm, 
and  a  more  anxious  research  for  the  right  word.  He 
never  forgets  that  he  has  been  the  Regent  of  Castile, 
that  he  has  mingled  with  kings  and  queens,  that  he  has 
cowed  emirs  and  barons,  and  led  his  troopers  at  the 


ALFONSO  ONCENO  85 

charge  ;  and  it  is  well  that  he  never  unbends,  since  his 
unsmiling  patrician  humour  gives  each  story  a  keener 
point.  In  mind  as  in  blood  he  is  the  great  Alfonso's 
kinsman,  and  the  relation  becomes  evident  in  his  treat- 
ment of  the  prose  sentence.  He  inherited  it  with  many 
another  splendid  tradition,  and,  while  he  preserves  entire 
its  stately  clearness,  he  polishes  to  concision  ;  he  sets 
with  conscience  to  the  work,  sharpening  the  edges  of 
his  instrument,  exhibits  its  possibilities  in  the  way  of 
trenchancy,  and  puts  it  to  subtler  uses  than  heretofore. 
In  his  hands  Castilian  prose  acquires  a  new  ductility  and 
finish,  and  his  subjects  are  such  that  dramatists  of  genius 
have  stooped  to  borrow  from  him.  In  him  (Enxemplo 
XL  V.)  is  the  germ  of  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew  (though 
it  is  scarcely  credible  that  Shakespeare  lifted  it  direct), 
and  from  him  Calder6n  takes  not  merely  the  title — Count 
Lucanor — of  a  play,  but  the  famous  apologue  in  the  first 
act  of  Life  is  a  Dream,  an  adaptation  to  the  stage  of 
one  of  Juan  Manuel's  best  instances  (Enxemplo  XXXI?). 
Pilferings  by  Le  Sage  are  things  of  course,  and  Gil  Bias 
benefits  by  its  author's  reading.  Translations  apart — 
and  they  are  forthcoming — the  Conde  Lucanor  is  one  of 
the  books  of  the  world,  and  each  reading  of  it  makes 
more  sensible  the  loss  of  the  verses  which,  one  would 
fain  believe,  might  place  the  writer  as  high  among  poets 
as  among  prose  writers. 

The  Poem  a  de  Alfonso  Onceno,  also  known  as  his 
Rhymed  Chronicle,  was  unearthed  at  Granada  in  1573 
by  Diego  Hurtado  de  Mendoza,  and  an  extract  from 
it,  printed  fifteen  years  later  by  Argote  de  Molina, 
encouraged  the  idea  that  Alfonso  XL  wrote  it.  That 
King's  sole  exploit  in  literature  is  a  handbook  on  venery, 
often  attributed  to  Alfonso  the  Learned.  The  fuller, 


86  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

but  still  incomplete  text  of  the  Poema,  first  published 
in  1864,  discloses  (stanza  1841)  the  author's  name  as 
RODRIGO  YANEZ  or  Yannes.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  he 
speaks  of  rendering  Merlin's  prophecy  in  the  Castilian 
tongue  : — 

"  Yo  Rodrigo  Yannes  la  nott 
En  lenguaje  caste  llano." 

Everything  points  to  his  having  translated  from  a  Galician 
original,  being  himself  a  Galician  who  hispaniolised  his 
name  of  Rodrigo  Eannes.  Strong  arguments  in  favour 
of  this  theory  are  advanced  by  great  authorities — Pro- 
fessor Cornu,  and  that  most  learned  lady,  Mme.  Carolina 
Michaelis  de  Vasconcellos.  In  the  first  place,  the  many 
technical  defects  of  the  Poema  vanish  upon  translation 
into  Galician  ;  and  next,  the  verses  are  laced  with  allu- 
sions to  Merlin,  which  indicate  a  familiarity  with  Breton 
legends,  common  enough  in  Galicia  and  Portugal,  but 
absolutely  unknown  in  Spain.  Be  that  as  it  prove,  the 
Poema  interests  as  the  last  expression  of  the  old  Castilian 
epic.  Here  we  have,  literally,  the  swan-song  of  the 
man-at-arms,  chanting  the  battles  in  which  he  shared, 
commemorating  the  names  of  comrades  foremost  in  the 
van,  reproducing  the  martial  music  of  the  camp  juglar, 
observing  the  set  conventions  of  the  cantares  de  gesta. 
His  last  appearance  on  any  stage  is  marked  by  a  portent 
— the  suppression  of  the  tedious  Alexandrine,  and  the 
resolution  into  two  lines  of  the  sixteen-syllabled  verse. 
Yanez  is  an  excellent  instance  of  the  third-rate  man, 
the  amateur,  who  embodies,  if  he  does  not  initiate,  a 
revolution.  His  own  system  of  octosyllabics  in  alter- 
nate rhymes  has  a  sing-song  monotony  which  wearies 
by  its  facile  copiousness,  and  inspiration  visits  him  at 


SEM  TOB  87 

rare  and  distant  intervals.  But  the  step  that  costs  is 
taken,  and  a  place  is  prepared  for  the  young  romance  in 
literature. 

No  precise  information  offers  concerning  Rabbi  SEM 
TOB  of  Carri6n,  the  first  Jew  who  writes  at  length  in 
Castilian.  His  dedication  to  Pedro  the  Cruel,  who 
reigned  from  1350  to  1369,  enables  us  to  fix  his  date 
approximately,  and  to  guess  that  he  was,  like  others  of 
his  race,  a  favourite  with  that  maligned  ruler.  Written 
in  the  early  days  of  the  new  reign,  Sem  Tob's  Proverbio? 
Morales,  consisting  of  686  seven-syllabled  quatrains,  are 
more  than  a  metrical  novelty.  His  collection  of  senten- 
tious maxims,  borrowed  mainly  from  Arabic  sources  and 
from  the  Bible,  is  the  first  instance  in  Castilian  of  the 
versified  epigram  which  was  to  produce  the  brilliant 
Proverbs  of  Santillana,  who  praises  the  Rabbi  as  a  writer 
of  "very  good  things,"  and  reports  his  esteem  as  a. 
" grand  trovador."  In  Santillana's  hands  the  maxims 
are  Spanish,  are  European ;  in  Sem  Tob's  they  are 
Jewish,  oriental.  The  moral  is  pressed  with  insistence, 
the  presentation  is  haphazard  ;  while  the  extreme  con- 
cision of  thought,  the  exaggerated  frugality  of  words, 
tends  to  obscurity.  Against  this  is  to  be  set  the  exalted 
standard  of  the  teaching,  the  daring  figures  of  the  writer, 
his  happiness  of  epithet,  his  note  of  austere  melancholy, 
and  his  complete  triumph  in  naturalising  a  new  poetic 
genre. 

It  has  been  sought  to  father  on  Sem  Tob  three  other 
pieces  :  the  Treatise  of  Doctrine,  the  Revelation  of  a  Hermit, 
and  the  Danza  de  la  Muerte.  The  Treatise,  a  catechism  in 
octosyllabic  triplets  with  a  four-syllabled  line,  is  by  Pedro 
de  Berague,  and  is  only  curious  for  its  rhythm,  imitated 
from  the  rime  coute,  and  for  being  the  first  work  of  its 
7 


88  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

kind.  Sem  Tob  was  in  his  grave  when  the  ancient  sub- 
ject of  the  Argument  between  Body  and  Soul  was  re- 
introduced  by  the  maker  of  the  Revelation  of  a  Hermit, 
wherein  the  souls  are  figured  as  birds,  gracious  or 
hideous  as  the  case  may  be.  The  third  line  of  this 
didactic  poem  gives  its  date  as  1382,  and  this  is  con- 
firmed by  the  evidence  of  the  metre  and  the  presence  of 
an  Italian  savour.  In  the  case  of  the  anonymous  Danza 
de  la  Muerte  the  metre  once  more  fixes  the  period  of 
composition  at  about  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century. 
Most  European  literatures  possess  a  Danse  Macabrt  of 
their  own  ;  yet,  though  the  Castilian  is  probably  an  imi- 
tation of  some  unrecognised  French  original,  it  is  the 
oldest  known  version  of  the  legend.  It  is  not  rash  to 
assume  that  its  immediate  occasion  was  the  last  terrific 
outbreak  of  the  Black  Death,  which  lasted  from  1394 
to  1399.  Death  bids  mankind  to  his  revels,  and  forces 
them  to  join  his  dance.  The  form  is  superficially 
dramatic,  and  the  thirty-three  victims — pope,  emperor, 
cardinal,  king,  and  so  forth,  a  cleric  and  a  layman  always 
alternating — reply  to  the  summons  in  a  series  of  octaves. 
Whoever  composed  the  Spanish  version,  he  must  be 
accepted  as  an  expert  in  the  art  of  morbid  allegory. 
Odd  to  say,  the  Catalan  Carbonell,  constructing  his 
Dance  of  Death  in  the  sixteenth  century,  rejects  this  fine 
Castilian  version  for  the  French  of  Jean  de  Limoges, 
Chancellor  of  Paris. 

A  writer  who  represents  the  stages  of  the  literary  evo- 
lution of  his  age  is  the  long-lived  Chancellor,  PERO  LOPEZ 
DE  AYALA  (1332-1407).  His  career  is  a  veritable  romance 
of  feudalism.  Living  under  Alfonso  XI.,  he  became  the 
favourite  of  Pedro  the  Cruel,  whom  he  deserted  at  the 
psychological  moment.  He  chronicles  his  own  and  his 


AYALA  89 

father's  defection  in  such  terms  as  Pepys  or  the  Vicar 
of  Bray  might  use: — "They  saw  that  Don  Pedro's  affairs 
were  all  awry,  so  they  resolved  to  leave  him,  not  intend- 
ing to  return."  Pedro  the  Cruel,  Enrique  II.,  Juan  I., 
Enrique  III. — Ayala  served  all  four  with  profit  to  his 
pouch,  without  flagrant  treason.  Loyalty  he  held  for 
a  vain  thing  compared  with  interest ;  yet  he  earned  his 
money  and  his  lands  in  fight.  He  ever  strove  to  be  on 
the  winning  side,  but  luck  was  hostile  when  the  Black 
Prince  captured  him  at  Najera  (1367),  and  when  he  was 
taken  prisoner  at  Aljubarrota  (1385).  The  fifteen  months 
spent  in  an  iron  cage  at  the  castle  of  Oviedes  after  the 
second  defeat  gave  Ayala  one  of  his  opportunities.  He 
had  wasted  no  chance  in  life,  nor  did  he  now.  It  were 
pleasant  to  think  with  Ticknor  that  some  part  of  Ayala's 
Rimado  de  Palacio  "  was  written  during  his  imprisonment 
in  England," — pleasant,  but  difficult.  To  begin  with,  it 
is  by  no  means  sure  that  Ayala  ever  quitted  the  Penin- 
sula. More  than  this  :  though  the  Rimado  de  Palacio  was 
composed  at  intervals,  the  stages  can  be  dated  approxi- 
mately. The  earlier  part  of  the  poem  contains  an  allu- 
sion to  the  schism  during  the  pontificate  of  Urban  VI., 
so  that  this  passage  must  date  from  1378  or  afterwards ; 
the  reference  to  the  death  of  the  poet's  father,  Hernan 
Perez  de  Ayala,  brings  us  to  the  year  1385  or  later ;  and 
the  statement  that  the  schism  had  lasted  twenty-five 
years  fixes  the  time  of  composition  as  1403. 

Rimado  de  Palacio  (Court  Rhymes)  is  a  chance  title 
that  has  attached  itself  to  Ayala's  poem  without  the 
author's  sanction.  It  gives  a  false  impression  of  his 
theme,  which  is  the  decadence  of  his  age.  Only  within 
narrow  limits  does  Ayala  deal  with  courts  and  courtiers ; 
he  had  a  wider  outlook,  and  he  scourges  society  at  large. 


90  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

What  was  a  jest  to  Ruiz  was  a  woe  to  the  Chancellor. 
Ruiz  had  a  natural  sympathy  for  a  loose-living  cleric ; 
Ayala  lashes  this  sort  with  a  thong  steeped  in  vitriol. 
The  one  looks  at  life  as  a  farce ;  the  other  sees  it  as  a 
tragedy.  Where  the  first  finds  matter  for  merriment,  the 
second  burns  with  the  white  indignation  of  the  just.  The 
deliberate  mordancy  of  Ayala  is  impartial  insomuch  as 
it  is  universal.  Courtiers,  statesmen,  bishops,  lawyers, 
merchants — he  brands  them  all  with  corruption,  simony, 
embezzlement,  and  exposes  them  as  venal  sons  of  Belial. 
And,  like  Ruiz,  he  places  himself  in  the  pillory  to 
heighten  his  effects.  He  spares  not  his  superstitious 
belief  in  omens,  dreams,  and  such-like  fooleries  ;  he  dis- 
covers himself  as  a  grinder  of  the  poor  man's  face,  a 
libidinous  perjurer,  a  child  of  perdition. 

But  not  all  Ayala's  poem  is  given  up  to  cursing.  In 
his  yo5th  stanza  he  closes  what  he  calls  his  sermdn  with 
the  confession  that  he  had  written  it,  "being  sore 
afflicted  by  many  grievous  sorrows,"  and  in  the  re- 
maining 904  stanzas  Ayala  breathes  a  serener  air.  In 
both  existing  codices — that  of  Campo-Alange  and  that 
of  the  Escorial — this  huge  postscript  follows  the  Rimado 
de  Palacio  with  no  apparent  break  of  continuity ;  yet 
it  differs  in  form  and  substance  from  what  precedes. 
The  cuaderna  via  alone  is  used  in  the  satiric  and  auto- 
biographical verses ;  the  later  hymns  and  songs  are 
metrical  experiments — echoes  of  Galician  and  Provencal 
measures,  redondillas  of  seven  syllables,  attempts  to 
raise  the  Alexandrine  from  the  dead,  results  derived 
from  Alfonso's  Cantigas  and  Juan  Ruiz'  loores.  In  his 
seventy-third  year  Ayala  was  still  working  upon  his 
Rimado  de  Palacio.  It  was  too  late  for  him  to  master 
the  new  methods  creeping  into  vogue,  and  though  in  the 


AYALA  91 

Cancionero  de  Baena  (No.  518)  Ayala  answers  Sanchez 
Talavera's  challenge  in  the  regulation  octaves,  he  harks 
back  to  the  cuaderna  via  of  his  youth  in  his  paraphrase 
of  St.  Gregory's  Job.  If  he  be  the  writer  of  the  Pro- 
verbios  en  Rimo  de  Salomon — a  doubtful  point — his  pre- 
ference for  the  old  system  is  there  undisguised.  Could 
that  system  have  been  saved,  Ayala  had  saved  it :  not 
even  he  could  stay  the  world  from  moving. 

His  prose  is  at  least  as  distinguished  as  his  verse.  A 
treatise  on  falconry,  rich  in  rarities  of  speech,  shows 
the  variety  of  his  interests,  and  his  version  of  Boc- 
caccio's De  Casibus  Virorum  illustrium  brings  him  into 
touch  with  the  conquering  Italian  influence.  His  refer- 
ence to  Amadis  in  the  Rimado  de  Palacio  (stanza  162), 
the  first  mention  of  that  knight-errantry  of  Spain,  proves 
acquaintance  with  new  models.  Translations  of  Boetius 
and  of  St.  Isidore  were  pastimes ;  a  partial  rendering  of 
Livy,  done  at  the  King's  command,  was  of  greater  value. 
In  person  or  by  proxy,  Alfonso  the  Learned  had  opened 
up  the  land  of  history  ;  Juan  Manuel  had  summarised 
his  uncle's  work ;  the  chronicle  of  the  Moor  Rasis,  other- 
wise Abu  Bakr  Ahmad  ibn  Muhammad  ibn  Musa,  had 
been  translated  from  the  Arabic  ;  the  annals  of  Alfonso 
XL  and  his  three  immediate  predecessors  were  written  by 
some  industrious  mediocrity — perhaps  Fernan  Sanchez 
de  Tovar,  or  Juan  Nunez  de  Villaizdn.  These  are  not 
so  much  absolute  history  as  the  raw  material  of  history. 
In  his  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Castile,  Ayala  considers 
the  reigns  of  Pedro  the  Cruel,  Enrique  II.,  Juan  I.,  and 
Enrique  III.,  in  a  modern  scientific  spirit.  Songs, 
legends,  idle  reports,  no  longer  serve  as  evidence. 
Ayala  sifts  his  testimonies,  compares,  counts,  weighs 
them,  checks  them  by  personal  knowledge.  He  borrows 


92  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

Livy's  framework,  inserting  speeches  which,  if  not 
stenographic  reports  of  what  was  actually  said,  are 
complete  illustrations  of  dramatic  motive.  He  deals 
with  events  which  he  had  witnessed  :  plots  which  his 
crafty  brain  inspired,  victories  wherein  he  shared,  battles 
in  which  he  bit  the  dust.  The  portraits  in  his  gallery  are 
scarce,  but  every  likeness,  is  a  masterpiece  rendered  with 
a  few  broad  strokes.  He  records  with  cold-blooded  im- 
partiality as  a  judge  ;  his  native  austerity,  his  knowledge 
of  affairs  and  men,  guard  him  from  the  temptations  of 
the  pleader.  With  his  unnatural  neutrality  go  rare  in- 
stinct for  the  essential  circumstance,  unerring  sagacity  in 
the  divination  and  presentment  of  character,  unerring 
art  in  preparing  climax  and  catastrophe,  and  the  gift 
of  concise,  picturesque  phrase.  A  statesman  of  genius 
writing  personal  history  with  the  candour  of  Pepys  : 
as  such  the  thrifty  MeYimee  recognised  Ayala,  and,  in 
his  own  confection,  so  revealed  him  to  the  nineteenth 
century. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  AGE  OF  JUAN  II. 

1419-1454 

AYALA'S  verse,  the  conscious  effort  of  deliberate  artistry, 
contrasts  with  those  popular  romances  which  can  be 
divined  through  the  varnish  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Few,  if  any,  of  the  existing  ballads  date  from  Ayala's 
time ;  and  of  the  nineteen  hundred  printed  in  Duran's 
Romancero  General  the  merest  handful  is  older  than 
1492,  when  Antonio  de  Nebrija  examined  their  structure 
in  his  Arte  de  la  Lengua  Castellana.  Yet  the  older 
romances  were  numerous  and  long-lived  enough  to  sup- 
plant the  cantares  de  gesta,  against  which  chronicles  and 
annals  made  war  by  giving  the  same  epical  themes  with 
more  detail  and  accuracy.  In  turn  these  chronicles 
afforded  subjects  for  romances  of  a  later  day.  An  illus- 
tration suffices  to  prove  the  point.  Every  one  knows  the 
spirited  close  of  the  first  in  order  of  Lockhart's  Ancient 
Spanish  Ballads : — 

"  Last  night  I  was  the  King  of  Spain — to-day  no  King  am  I. 
Last  night  fair  castles  held  my  train — to-night  where  shall  I  lie  ? 
Last  night  a  hundred  pages  did  serve  me  on  the  knee — 
To-night  not  one  I  call  my  own :  not  one  pertains  to  me" 

The  original  is  founded  on  Pedro  de  Corral's  Cronica  de 
Don  Rodrigo  (chapters  207,  208),  which  was  not  written 


93 


94  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

till  1404,  and  from  the  same  source  (chapters  238-244) 
comes  the  substance  of  Lockhart's  second  ballad  : — 

"  //  was  when  the  King  Rodrigo  had  lost  his  realm  of  Spain" 

The  modernity  of  almost  every  piece  in  Lockhart's  col- 
lection were  as  easily  proved  ;  but  it  is  more  important 
at  this  point  to  turn  from  the  popular  song-makers  to 
the  new  school  of  writers  which  was  forming  itself  upon 
foreign  models. 

Representative  of  these  innovations  is  the  grandson  of 
Enrique  II.,  ENRIQUE  DE  VILLENA  (1384-1434),  upon 
whom  posterity  has  conferred  a  marquisate  which  he  never 
possessed  in  life.1  His  first  production  is  said  to  have 
been  a  set  of  coplas  written,  as  Master  of  the  Order  of 
Calatrava,  for  the  royal  feasts  at  Zaragoza  in  1414  ;  his 
earliest  known  work  is  his  Arte  de  trovar  (Art  of  Poetry), 
given  in  the  same  year  at  the  Consistory  of  the  Gay 
Science  at  Barcelona.  Villena,  of  whose  treatise  mere 
scraps  survive,  shows  minute  acquaintance  with  the 
works  of  early  trovadores ;  of  general  principles  he  says 
naught,  losing  himself  in  discursive  details.  Early  in 
1417  followed  the  Trabajos  de  Hercules  (Labours  of  Her- 
cules), first  written  in  Catalan  by  request  of  Pero  Pardo, 
and  done  into  Castilian  in  the  autumn  of  the  year.  This 
tedious  allegory,  crushed  beneath  a  weight  of  pedantry, 
is  unredeemed  by  ingenuity  or  fancy,  and  the  style  is 
disfigured  by  violent  and  absurd  inversions  which  bespeak 
long,  tactless  study  of  Latin  texts.  Juan  Manuel's  digni- 
fied restraint  is  lost  on  his  successor,  itching  to  flaunt 

i  Strictly  speaking,  this  writer  should  be  called  Enrique  de  Aragon ;  but, 
since  this  leads  to  confusion  with  his  contemporary,  the  Infante  Enrique  de 
Arag6n,  it  is  convenient  to  distinguish  him  as  Enrique  de  Villena.  He  was 
not  a  marquis,  and  never  uses  the  title. 


VILLENA  95 

inopportune  learning  with  references  to  Aristotle,  Aulus 
Gellius,  and  St.  Jerome.  In  1423,  at  the  instance  of 
Sancho  de  Jaraba,  Villena  wrote  his  twenty  chapters  on 
carving — the  Arte  cisoria,  an  epicure's  handbook  to  the 
royal  table,  compact  of  curious  counsels  and  recipes 
expounded  with  horrid  eloquence  by  a  pedant  who 
tended  to  gluttony.  Still  odder  is  the  Libra  de  Aoja- 
miento  (Dissertation  on  the  Evil  Eye)  with  its  three 
"  preventive  modes,"  as  recommended  by  Avicenna  and 
his  brethren.  Translations  of  Dante  and  Cicero  are  lost, 
and  three  treatises  on  leprosy,  on  consolation,  and  on 
the  Eighth  Psalm  are  valueless.  Villena  piqued  himself 
on  being  the  first  in  Spain — he  might  perhaps  have  said 
the  first  anywhere — to  translate  the  whole  j<Eneid ;  but 
he  marches  to  ruin  with  his  mimicry  of  Latin  idioms, 
his  abuse  of  inversion,  and  his  graces  of  a  cart-horse  in 
the  lists.  No  contemporary  was  more  famed  for  uni- 
versal accomplishment  ;  so  that,  while  he  lived,  men 
held  him  for  a  wizard,  and,  when  he  died,  applauded 
the  partial  burning  of  his  books  by  Lope  de  Barrientos, 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Segovia,  who  put  the  rest  to  his 
private  uses.  Santillana  and  Juan  de  Mena  assert  that 
Villena  wrote  Castilian  verse,  and  Baena  implies  as  much  ; 
if  so,  he  was  probably  a  common  poetaster,  the  loss  of 
whose  rhymes  is  a  stroke  of  luck.  A  Castilian  poem  on 
the  labours  of  Hercules,  ascribed  to  him  by  Pellicer,  is  a 
rank  forgery.  Measured  by  his  repute,  Villena's  works 
are  disappointing.  But  if  we  reflect  that  he  translated 
Dante,  that  he  strove  to  naturalise  successful  foreign 
methods,  and  that  in  his  absurdest  moments  he  proves 
his  susceptibility  to  new  ideas,  we  may  explain  his 
renown  and  his  influence.  Nor  did  these  end  with  his 
life ;  for  Lope  de  Vega,  Alarc6n,  Rojas  Zorrilla,  and 


96  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Hartzenbusch  have  brought  him  on  the  boards,  and  he 
has  appealed  with  singular  force  to  the  imaginations  of 
both  Quevedo  and  Larra. 

To  Villena's  time  belong  two  specimens  of  the  old 
encyclopaedic  school:  the  Libra  de  los  Gatos,  translated 
from  the  Narrationes  of  the  English  monk,  Odo  of 
Cheriton  ;  and  the  Libra  de  los  Enxemplos  of  Clemente 
Sanchez  of  Valderas,  whose  seventy-one  missing  stories 
were  brought  to  light  in  1878  by  M.  Morel-Fatio.  San- 
chez' collection,  thus  completed,  shows  the  entrance 
into  Spain  of  the  legend  of  Buddha's  life,  adapted  by 
some  Christian  monk  from  the  Sanskrit  Lalita-  Vistara, 
and  popular  the  world  over  as  the  Romance  of  Barlaam 
and  Josaphat.  The  style  is  carefully  modelled  on  Juan 
Manuel's  manner. 

The  Cancionero  de  Baena,  named  after  the  anthologist 
Juan  Alfonso  de  Baena  above  mentioned,  contains  the 
verses  of  some  sixty  poets  who  flourished  during  the  reign 
of  Juan  II.,  or  a  little  earlier.  This  collection,  first  pub- 
lished in  1851,  mirrors  two  conflicting  tendencies.  The  old 
Gr.lician  school  is  represented  by  Alfonso  Alvarez  de  Villa- 
sandino  (sometimes  called  de  Illescas),  a  copious,  foul- 
mouthed  ruffian,  with  gusts  of  inspiration  and  an  abiding 
mastery  of  technique.  To  the  same  section  belong  the 
Archdeacon  of  Toro,  a  facile  versifier,  and  Juan  Rodriguez 
de  la  Camara,  whose  name  is  inseparable  from  that  of 
Maci'as,  ElEnamorado.  Mac/as  has  left  five  songs  of  slight 
distinction,  and,  as  a  poet,  ranks  below  Rodriguez  de  la 
Camara.  Yet  he  lives  on  the  capital  of  his  legend,  the  type 
of  the  lover  faithful  unto  death,  and  the  circumstances 
of  his  passing  are  a  part  of  Castilian  literature.  The  tale 
is  (but  there  are  variants),  that  Maci'as,  once  a  member 
of  Villena's  household,  was  imprisoned  at  Arjonilla, 


MACfAS:    RODRfGUEZ  97 

where  a  jealous  husband  slew  the  poet  in  the  act  of 
singing  his  platonic  love.  Quoted  times  innumerable, 
this  more  or  less  authentic  story  of  Macfas'  end  ensured 
him  an  immortality  far  beyond  the  worth  of  his  verses  : 
it  fired  the  popular  imagination,  and  enters  into  literature 
in  Lope  de  Vega's  Porfiar  hasta  morir  and  in  Larra's 
El  Doncel  de  Don  Enrique  el  Doliente. 

A  like  romantic  memory  attaches  to  Macias'  friend, 
Juan  Rodriguez  de  la  Camara  (also  called  Rodriguez 
del  Padron),  the  last  poet  of  the  Galician  school,  re- 
presented in  Baena's  Candonero  by  a  single  cdntica. 
The  conjectures  that  make  Rodriguez  the  lover  of 
Juan  II.'s  wife,  Isabel,  or  of  Enrique  IV.'s  wife,  Juana, 
are  destroyed  by  chronology.  None  the  less  it  is 
certain  that  the  writer  was  concerned  in  some  myste- 
rious, dangerous  love-affair  which  led  to  his  exile, 
and,  as  some  believe,  to  his  profession  as  a  Franciscan 
monk.  His  seventeen  surviving  songs  are  all  erotic, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Flama  del  divino  Rayo,  his  best 
performance  in  thanksgiving  for  his  spiritual  conversion. 
His  loves  are  also  recounted  in  three  prose  books,  of 
which  the  semi-chivalresque  novel,  El  Siervo  libre  de 
Amor,  is  still  readable.  But  Rodriguez  interests  most  as 
the  last  representative  of  the  Galician  verse  tradition. 

Save  Ayala,  who  is  exampled  by  one  solitary  poem, 
the  oldest  singer  in  Baena's  choir  is  Pero  Ferrus,  the 
connecting  link  between  the  Galician  and  Italian  schools. 
A  learned  rather  than  an  inspired  poet,  Ferrus  is  remem- 
bered chiefly  because  of  his  chance  allusion  ioAmadis  in 
the  stanzas  dedicated  to  Ayala.  Four  poets  in  Baena's 
song-book  herald  the  invasion  of  Spain  by  the  Italians, 
and  it  is  fitting  that  the  first  and  best  of  these  should 
be  a  man  of  Italian  blood,  Francisco  Imperial,  the  son 


98  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

of  a  Genoese  jeweller,  settled  in  Seville.  Imperial,  aa 
his  earliest  poem  shows,  read  Arabic  and  English.  He 
may  have  met  with  Gower's  Confessio  Amantis  before 
it  was  done  into  Castilian  by  Juan  de  la  Cuenca  at 
the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century — being  the  first 
translation  of  an  English  book  in  Spain.  Howbeit,  he 
quotes  English  phrases,  and  offers  a  copy  of  French 
verses.  These  are  trifles  :  Imperial's  best  gift  to  his 
adopted  country  was  his  transplanting  of  Dante,  whom 
he  imitates  assiduously,  reproducing  the  Florentine  note 
with  such  happy  intonation  as  to  gain  for  him  the  style 
of  poet — as  distinguished  from  trovador — from  Santi- 
llana,  who  awards  him  "  the  laurel  of  this  western  land." 
Thirteen  poems  by  Ruy  Pdez  de  Ribera,  vibrating  with 
the  melancholy  of  illness,  shuddering  with  the  squalor 
of  want,  affiliate  their  writer  with  Imperial's  new  expres- 
sion, and  vaguely  suggest  the  realising  touch  of  Villon. 
At  least  one  piece  by  Ferrant  Sanchez  Talavera  is 
memorable — the  elegy  on  the  death  of  the  Admiral  Ruy 
Dfaz  de  Mendoza,  which  anticipates  the  mournful  march, 
the  solemn  music,  some  of  the  very  phrases  of  Jorge 
Manrique's  noble  coplas.  In  the  Dantesque  manner  is 
Gonzalo  Martfnez  de  Medina's  flagellation  of  the  cor- 
ruptions of  his  age.  Baena,  secretary  to  Juan  II.,  in 
eighty  numbers  approves  himself  a  weak  imitator  of 
Villasandino's  insolence,  and  is  remembered  simply  as 
the  arranger  of  a  handbook  which  testifies  to  the  defini- 
tive triumph  of  the  compiler's  enemies. 

A  poet  of  greater  performance  than  any  in  the  Can- 
cionero  de  Baena  is  the  shifty  politician,  fsigo  Lopez  de 
Mendoza,  Marque's  de  SANTILLANA  (1398-1458),  towns- 
man of  Rabbi  Sem  Tob,the  Jew  of  Carri6n.  Oddly  enough, 
Baena  excludes  Santillana  from  his  collection,  and  San< 


SANTILLANA  99 

tillana,  in  reviewing  the  poets  of  his  time,  ignores  Baena, 
whom  he  probably  despised  as  a  parasite.  A  remarkable 
letter  to  the  Constable  of  Portugal  shows  Santillana  as  a 
pleasant  prose-writer ;  in  his  rhetorical  Lamentation  en 
Prophe^ia  de  la  segunda  Destruygion  de  Espana  he  fails  in 
the  grand  style,  though  he  succeeds  in  the  familiar  with 
his  collection  of  old  wives'  fireside  proverbs,  Refranes  que 
di^en  las  Viejas  tras  el  Huego.  His  Centiloquio,  a  hundred 
rhymed  proverbs  divided  into  fourteen  chapters,  is  grace- 
fully written  and  skilfully  put  together  ;  his  Comedieta  de 
Ponza  is  reminiscent  of  both  Dante  and  Boccaccio,  and 
its  title,  together  with  the  fact  that  the  dialogue  is  allotted 
to  different  personages,  has  led  many  into  the  error  of 
taking  it  for  a  dramatic  piece.  Far  more  essentially 
dramatic  in  spirit  is  the  Didlogo  de  Bias  contra  Fortuna, 
which  embodies  a  doctrinal  argument  upon  the  advan- 
tages of  the  philosophic  mind  in  circumstances  of  adver- 
sity ;  and  grouped  with  this  goes  the  Doctrinal  de  Privados, 
a  fierce  philippic  against  Alvaro  de  Luna,  Santillana's 
political  foe,  who  is  convicted  of  iniquities  out  of  his  own 
mouth. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  of  Santillana  that  he  was  an 
original  genius  :  it  is  within  bounds  to  class  him  as  a 
highly  gifted  versifier  with  extraordinary  imitative  powers. 
He  has  no  "  message  "  to  deliver,  no  wide  range  of  ideas  : 
his  attraction  lies  not  so  much  in  what  is  said  as  in  his 
trick  of  saying  it.  He  is  one  of  the  few  poets  whom 
erudition  has  not  hampered.  He  was  familiar  with 
writers  as  diverse  as  Dante  and  Petrarch  and  Alain 
Chartier,  and  he  reproduces  their  characteristics  with  a 
fine  exactness  and  felicity.  But  he  was  something  more 
than  an  intelligent  echo,  for  he  filed  and  laboured  till  he 
acquired  a  final  manner  of  his  own.  Doubtless  to  his 


ioo  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

own  taste  his  forty-two  sonnets— -fechos  al  itdlico  mode,  as 
he  proudly  tells  you — were  his  best  titles  to  glory  ;  and 
it  is  true  that  he  acclimatised  the  sonnet  in  Spain,  sharing 
with  the  Aragonese,  Juan  de  Villapando,  the  honour 
of  being  Spain's  only  sonneteer  before  Boscan's  time. 
Commonplace  in  thought,  stiff  in  expression,  the  sonnets 
are  only  historically  curious.  It  is  in  his  .lighter  vein  that 
Santillana  reaches  his  full  stature.  The  grace  and  gaiety 
of  his  decires,  serranillas  and  vaqueiras  are  all  his  own. 
If  he  borrowed  suggestions  from  Provencal  poets,  he  is 
free  of  the  Provencal  artifice,  and  sings  with  the  simpli- 
city of  Venus'  doves.  Here  he  revealed  a  peculiar  aspect 
of  his  many-sided  temperament,  and  by  his  tact  made  a 
living  thing  of  primitive  emotions,  which  were  to  be  done 
to  death  in  the  pastorals  of  heavy-handed  bunglers.  The 
first-fruits  of  the  pastoral  harvest  live  in  the  house  where 
Santillana  garnered  them,  and  those  roses,  amid  which 
he  found  the  milkmaid  of  La  Finojosa,  are  still  as  sweet 
in  his  best  known — and  perhaps  his  best — ballad  as  on 
that  spring  morning,  between  Calateveflo  and  Santa 
Maria,  some  four  hundred  years  since.  Ceasing  to  be 
an  imitator,  Santillana  proves  inimitable. 

The  official  court-poet  of  the  age  was  JUAN  DE  MENA 
(1411-56),  known  to  his  own  generation  as  the  "prince 
of  Castilian  poets,"  and  Cervantes,  writing  more  than  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  afterwards, dubs  him  "that  great 
C6rdoban  poet."  A  true  son  of  C6rdoba,  Men  a  has  all 
the  qualities  of  the  Cordoban  school — the  ostentatious 
embellishment  of  his  ancestor,  Lucan,  and  the  unintel- 
ligible preciosity  of  his  descendant,  G6ngora.  The  Italian 
travels  of  his  youth  undid  him,  and  set  him  on  the  hope- 
less line  of  Italianising  Spanish  prose.  A  false  attribution 
enters  the  Annals  of  Juan  II.  under  Mena's  name  :  the 


MENA  101 

mere  fact  that  Juan  II.'s  Cronica  is  a  model  of  correct 
prose  disposes  of  the  pretension.  Mena's  summary  of  the 
Iliad,  and  the  commentary  to  his  poem  the  Coronation, 
convict  him  of  being  the  worst  prose-writer  in  all  Cas- 
tilian  literature.  Simplicity  and  vulgarity  were  for  him 
synonyms,  and  he  carries  his  doctrine  to  its  logical  ex- 
treme by  adopting  impossible  constructions,  by  wrench- 
ing his  sentences  asunder  by  exaggerated  inversions,  and 
by  adding  absurd  Latinisms  to  his  vocabulary.  These 
defects  are  less  grave  in  his  verse,  but  even  there  they 
follow  him.  Argote  de  Molina  would  have  him  the 
author  of  the  political  satire  called  the  Coplas  de  la  Pana- 
dera ;  but  Mena  lacked  the  lightness  of  touch,  the  wit 
and  sparkle  of  the  imaginary  baker's  wife.  If  he  be  read 
at  all,  he  is  to  be  studied  in  his  Laberinto,  also  known  as 
the  Trescientas,  a  heavy  allegory  whose  deliberate  obscu- 
rity is  indicated  by  its  name.  The  alternative  title,  Tres- 
cientaSj  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  poem  consisted 
of  three  hundred  stanzas,  to  which  sixty-five  were  added 
by  request  of  the  King,  who  kept  the  book  by  him  of 
nights  and  hankered  for  a  stanza  daily,  using  it,  maybe, 
as  a  soporific.  The  poet  is  whisked  by  the  dragons  in 
Bellona's  chariot  to  Fortune's  palace,  and  there  begins 
the  inevitable  imitation  of  Dante,  with  its  machinery  of 
seven  planetary  circles,  and  its  grandiose  vision  of  past, 
present,  and  future.  The  work  of  a  learned  poet  taking 
himself  too  seriously  and  straining  after  effects  beyond 
his  reach,  the  Laberinto  is  tedious  as  a  whole  ;  yet,  though 
Mena's  imagination  fails  to  realise  his  abstractions,  though 
he  be  riddled  with  purposeless  conceits,  he  touches  a  high 
level  in  isolated  episodes.  Much  of  his  vogue  may  be 
accounted  for  by  the  abundance  with  which  he  throws  off 
striking  lines  of  somewhat  hard,  even  marmoreal  beauty, 


102  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

and  by  the  ardent  patriotism  which  inspires  him  in  his 
best  passages.  A  poet  by  flashes,  at  intervals  rare  and 
far  apart,  Mena  does  himself  injustice  by  too  close  a 
devotion  to  aesthetic  principles,  that  made  failure  a  cer- 
tainty. Careful,  conscientious,  aspiring,  he  had  done  far 
more  if  he  had  attempted  much  less. 

Meanwhile  Castilian  prose  goes  forward  on  Alfonso's 
lines.  The  anonymous  Crdnica  of  Juan  II.,  wrongly  as- 
cribed to  Mena  and  P£rez  de  Guzman,  but  more  probably 
due  to  Alvar  Garcia  de  Santa  Maria  and  others  unknown, 
is  a  classic  example  of  style  and  accuracy,  rare  in  official 
historiography.  Mingled  with  many  chivalresque  details 
concerning  the  hidalgos  of  the  court  is  the  central  episode 
of  the  book,  the  execution  of  the  Constable,  Alvaro  de 
Luna.  The  last  great  scene  is  skilfully  prepared  and  is 
recounted  with  artful  simplicity  in  a  celebrated  pas- 
sage : — "  He  set  to  undoing  his  doublet-collar,  making 
ready  his  long  garments  of  blue  camlet,  lined  with  fox- 
skins  ;  and,  the  master  being  stretched  upon  the  scaffold, 
the  executioner  came  to  him,  begged  his  pardon,  em- 
braced him,  ran  the  poniard  through  his  neck,  cut  off 
his  head,  and  hung  it  on  a  hook ;  and  the  head  stayed 
there  nine  days,  the  body  three."  Passionate  declamation 
of  a  still  higher  order  is  found  in  the  Cronica  de  Don 
Alvaro  de  Luna,  written  by  a  most  dexterous  advocate, 
who  puts  his  mastery  of  phrase,  his  graphic  presenta- 
tion and  dramatic  vigour,  to  the  service  of  partisanship. 
Perhaps  no  man  was  ever  quite  so  great  and  good  as 
Alvaro  de  Luna  appears  in  his  Cronica,  but  the  strength 
of  conviction  in  the  narrator  is  expressed  in  terms  of 
moving  eloquence  that  would  persuade  to  accept  the 
portrait,  not  merely  as  a  masterpiece — for  that  it  is— 


P£REZ  DE  GUZMAN  103 

but,  as  an  authentic   presentment  of  a  misunderstood 
hero. 

After  much  violent  controversy,  it  may  now  be  taken 
as  settled  that  the  Cronica  del  Cid  is  based  upon  Alfonso's 
Estoria  de  Espanna.  But  it  comes  not  direct,  being 
borrowed  from  Alfonso  XL's  Cronica  de  Castillo,,  a  tran- 
script of  the  Estoria.  The  differences  from  the  early 
text  may  be  classed  under  three  heads  :  corruptions  of 
the  early  text,  freer  and  exacter  quotations  from  the 
romances,  and  deliberate  alterations  made  with  an  eye 
to  greater  conformity  with  popular  legends.  Valuable 
as  containing  the  earliest  versions  of  many  traditions 
which  were  to  be  diffused  through  the  Romanceros,  the 
Cronica  del  Cid  is  of  small  historic  authority,  and  Alfonso's 
stately  prose  loses  greatly  in  the  carrying. 

Ayala's  nephew,  FERNAN  P£REZ  DE  GUZMAN  (1378- 
1460),  continues  his  uncle's  poetic  tradition  in  the  forms 
borrowed  from  Italy,  as  well  as  i-n  earlier  lyrics  of  the 
Galician  school ;  but  his  mediocre  performances  as  a 
poet  are  overshadowed  by  his  brilliant  exploit  as  a 
historian.  He  is  responsible  for  the  Mar  de  Historias 
(The  Sea  of  Histories),  which  consists  of  three  divisions. 
The  first  deals  with  emperors  and  kings  ranging  from 
Alexander  to  King  Arthur,  from  Charlemagne  to  Godfrey 
de  Bouillon ;  the  second  treats  of  saints  and  sages,  their 
lives  and  the  books  they  wrote  ;  and  both  are  arrange- 
ments of  some  Ffench  version  of  Guido  delle  Colonne's 
Mare  Historiarum.  The  third  part,  now  known  as  the 
Generaciones  y  Semblanzas  (Generations  and  Likenesses), 
is  Pdrez  de  Guzman's  own  workmanship.  Foreign  critics 
have  compared  him  to  Plutarch  and  to  St.  Simon  ;  and, 
though  the  parallel  seems  dangerous,  it  can  be  maintained. 
This  amounts  to  saying  that  Perez  de  Guzman  is  one  of 


104  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

the  greatest  portrait-painters  in  the  world  ;  and  that  pre- 
cisely he  is.  He  argues  from  the  seen  to  the  unseen  with 
a  curious  anticipation  of  modern  psychological  methods; 
and  it  forms  an  integral  part  of  his  plan  to  draw  his 
personages  with  the  audacity  of  truth.  He  does  his  share, 
and  there  they  stand,  living  as  our  present-day  acquaint- 
ances, and  better  known.  Take  a  few  figures  at  random 
from  his  gallery  :  Enrique  de  Villena,  fat,  short,  and  fair, 
a  libidinous  glutton,  ever  in  the  clouds,  a  dolt  in  practice, 
subtle  of  genius  so  that  he  came  by  all  pure  knowledge 
easily  ;  Nunez  de  Guzman,  dissolute,  of  giant  strength, 
curt  of  speech,  a  jovial  roysterer ;  the  King  Enrique, 
grave  -  visaged,  bitter  -  tongued,  lonely,  melancholy  ; 
Catherine  of  Lancaster,  tall,  fair,  ruddy,  wine-bibbing, 
ending  in  paralysis ;  the  Constable  LxSpez  Davalos,  a 
self-made  man,  handsome,  taking,  gay,  amiable,  strong, 
a  fighter,  clever,  prudent,  but — as  man  must  have  some 
fault — cunning  and  given  to  astrology.  With  such  por- 
traits P6rez  de  Guzman  abounds.  The  picture  costs  him  no 
effort :  the  man  is  seized  in  the  act  and  delivered  to  you, 
with  no  waste  of  words,  with  no  essential  lacking,  classified 
as  a  museum  specimen,  impartially  but  with  a  tendency  to 
severity ;  and  when  Perez  de  Guzman  has  spoken,  there 
is  no  more  to  say.  He  is  a  good  hater,  and  lets  you  see 
it  when  he  deals  with  courtiers,  whom  he  regards  with  the 
true  St.  Simonian  loathing  for  an  upstart.  But  history  has 
confirmed  the  substantial  justice  of  his  verdicts,  and  has 
thus  shown  that  the  artist  in  him  was  even  stronger  than 
the  malignant  partisan.  It  is  saying  much.  And  to  his 
endowment  of  observation,  intelligence,  knowledge,  and 
character,  Perez  de  Guzman  joins  the  perfect  practice  of 
that  clear,  energetic  Castilian  speech  which  his  forebears 
bequeathed  him. 


CLAVIJO:    GAMEZ  105 

An  interesting  personal  narrative  hides  beneath  the 
mask  of  the  Vida  y  Hasafias  del  gran  Tamarldn  (Life 
and  Deeds  of  the  Mighty  Timour).  First  published  in 
1582,  this  work  is  nothing  less  than  a  report  of  the 
journey  (1403-6)  of  Ruy  Gonzalez  de  Clavijo  (d.  1412), 
who  traversed  all  the  space  "from  silken  Samarcand 
to  cedar'd  Lebanon,"  and  more.  Clavijo  tells  of  his 
wanderings  with  a  quaint  mingling  of  credulity  and 
scepticism ;  still,  his  witness  is  at  least  as  trustworthy 
as  Marco  Polo's,  and  his  recital  is  vastly  more  graphic 
than  the  Venetian's.  A  very  similar  motive  informs  the 
Cronica  del  Conde  de  Buelna,  Don  Pero  Nino  (1375-1446), 
by  Pero  Nino's  friend  and  pennon-bearer,  Gutierre  Diaz 
Gamez.  An  alternative  title — the  Victorial — discloses  the 
author's  intention  of  representing  his  leader  as  the  hero 
of  countless  triumphs  by  sea  and  land.  A  well-read 
esquire,  Diaz  Gamez  quotes  from  the  Libra  de  Alex- 
andre,  flecks  his  pages  with  allusions,  and — with  a  true 
traveller's  lust  for  local  colouring — comes  pat  with  tech- 
nical French  terms  :  his  sanglieres,  mestrieres,  cursieres, 
destrieres.  These  affectations  apart,  Diaz  Gamez  writes 
with  sense  and  force  ;  exalting  his  chief  overmuch,  but 
giving  bright  glimpses  of  a  mad,  adventurous  life,  and 
rising  to  altisonant  eloquence  in  chivalresque  outbursts, 
one  of  which  Cervantes  has  borrowed,  and  not  bettered, 
in  Don  Quixote's  great  discourse  on  letters  and  arms. 

Knight-errantry  was,  indeed,  beginning  to  possess  the 
land,  and,  as  it  chances,  an  account  of  the  maddest, 
hugest  tourney  in  the  world's  history  is  written  for  us 
by  an  eye-witness,  Pero  Rodriguez  de  Lena,  in  the  Libra 
del  Paso  Honroso  (Book  of  the  Passage  of  Honour). 
Lena  tells  how  the  demon  of  chivalry  entered  into  Suero 
de  Quiflones,  who,  seeking  release  from  his  pledge  of 


106  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

wearing  in  his  lady's  honour  an  iron  chain  each  Thurs- 
day, could  hit  on  no  better  means  than  by  offering,  with 
nine  knightly  brethren,  to  hold  the  bridge  of  San  Marcos 
at  Orbigo  against  the  paladins  of  Europe.  The  tilt 
lasted  from  July  10  to  August  9,  1434,  and  is  described 
with  simple  directness  by  Lena,  who  looks  upon  the 
six  hundred  single  combats  as  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world  :  but  his  story  is  important  as  a  "  human 
document,"  and  as  testimony  that  the  extravagant  inci- 
dents of  the  chivalrous  romances  had  their  counterparts 
in  real  life. 

The  fifteenth  century  finds  the  chivalrous  romance 
established  in  Spain  :  how  it  arrived  there  must  be  left 
for  discussion  till  we  come  to  deal  with  the  best  example 
of  the  kind — Amadis  de  Gaula.  Here  and  now  it  suffices 
to  say  that  there  probably  existed  an  early  Spanish  version 
of  this  story  which  has  disappeared ;  and  to  note  that 
the  dividing  line  between  the  annals,  filled  with  impos- 
sible traditions,  and  the  chivalrous  tales,  is  of  the  finest : 
so  fine,  in  fact,  that  several  of  the  latter — for  example, 
Florisel  de  Niquea  and  Amadis  de  Grecia — take  on  his- 
torical airs  and  call  themselves  cronicas.  The  mention 
of  the  lost  Castilian  Amadis  is  imperative  at  this  point 
if  we  are  to  recognise  one  of  the  chief  contemporary 
influences.  For  the  moment,  we  must  be  content  to 
note  its  practical  manifestations  in  the  extravagances 
of  Suero  de  Quiflones,  and  of  other  knights  whose 
names  are  given  in  the  chronicles  of  Alvaro  de  Luna 
and  Juan  II.  The  spasmodic  outbursts  of  the  craze 
observable  in  the  serious  chapters  of  Diaz  Gamez  are 
but  the  distant  rumblings  before  the  hurricane. 

While  Amadis  de  Gaula  was  read  in  courts  and  palaces, 
three  contemporary  writers  worked  in  different  veins. 


MARTINEZ:   LUCENA  107 

ALFONSO  MARTINEZ  DE  TOLEDO  (i398-?i466),  Arch- 
priest  of  Talavera,  and  chaplain  to  Juan  II.,  is  the  author 
of  the  Reprobation  del  Amor  mundano,  otherwise  El 
Corbacho  (The  Scourge).  The  latter  title,  not  of  the 
author's  choosing,  has  led  some  to  say  that  he  borrowed 
from  Boccaccio.  The  resemblance  between  the  Repro- 
bation and  the  Italian  Corbaccio  is  purely  superficial. 
Martinez  goes  forth  to  rebuke  the  vices  of  both  sexes 
in  his  age ;  but  the  moral  purpose  is  dropped,  and  he 
settles  down  to  a  deliberate  invective  against  women  and 
their  ways.  Amador  de  los  Ri'os  suggests  that  Martinez 
stole  hints  from  Francisco  Eximenis'  Carro  de  la  donas, 
a  Catalan  version  of  Boccaccio's  De  claris  mulieribus:  as 
the  latter  is  a  panegyric  on  the  sex,  the  suggestion  is 
unacceptable.  The  plain  fact  stares  us  in  the  face  that 
Martinez'  immediate  model  is  the  Archpriest  of  Hita, 
and  in  his  fourth  chapter  that  jovial  clerk  is  cited.  In- 
discriminate, unjust,  and  even  brutal,  as  Martinez  often 
is,  his  slashing  satire  may  be  read  with  extraordinary 
pleasure  :  that  is,  when  we  can  read  him  at  all,  for  his 
editions  are  rare  and  his  vocabulary  puzzling.  He  falls 
short  of  Ruiz'  wicked  urbanity ;  but  he  matches  him  in 
keenness  of  malicious  wit,  in  malignant  parody,  in  pica- 
resque intention,  while  he  surpasses  him  as  a  collector 
of  verbal  quips  and  popular  proverbs.  The  wealth  of 
his  splenetic  genius  (it  is  nothing  less)  affords  at  least 
one  passage  to  the  writer  of  the  Celestina.  Last  of  all — 
and  this  is  an  exceeding  virtue — Martinez'  speech  main- 
tains a  fine  standard  of  purity  at  a  time  when  foreign 
corruptions  ran  riot.  Hence  he  deserves  high  rank 
among  the  models  of  Castilian  prose. 

Another  chaplain  of  Juan  II.,  JUAN  DE  LUCENA  (fl.  1453), 
Is  the  author  of  the  Vita  Beata,  lacking  in  originality,  but 


108  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

notable  for  excellence  of  absolute  style.  He  follows 
Cicero's  plan  in  the  Definibus  bonorum  et  malorum,  intro- 
ducing Santillana,  Mena,  and  Garcia  de  Santa  Maria 
(the  probable  author,  as  we  have  seen,  of  the  King's 
Crdnicd).  In  an  imaginary  conversation  these  great  per- 
sonages discuss  the  question  of  mortal  happiness,  arriving 
at  the  pessimist  conclusion  that  it  does  not  exist,  or — 
sorry  alternative — that  it  is  unattainable.  Lucena  adds 
nothing  to  the  fund  of  ideas  upon  this  /-ackneyed  theme, 
but  the  perfect  finish  of  his  manner  lends  attraction  to 
his  lucid  commonplaces. 

The  last  considerable  writer  of  the  time  is  the  Bachelor 
ALFONSO  DE  LA  TORRE  (fl.  1461),  who  returns  upon  the 
didactic  manner  in  his  Vision  deleitable  de  la  Filosofia  y 
Artes  liberates.  Nominally,  the  Bachelor  offers  a  philo- 
sophic, allegorical  novel ;  in  substance,  his  work  is  a 
mediaeval  encyclopaedia.  It  was  assuredly  never  de- 
signed for  entertainment,  but  it  must  still  be  read  by 
all  who  are  curious  to  catch  those  elaborate  harmonies 
and  more  delicate  refinements  of  fifteenth-century  Cas- 
tilian  prose  which  half  tempt  to  indulgence  for  the 
writer's  insufferable  priggishness.  Alfonso  de  la  Torre 
figures  by  right  in  the  anthologies,  and  his  elegant 
extracts  win  an  admiration  of  which  his  unhappy  chpice 
of  subject  would  otherwise  deprive  him. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  AGE   OF    ENRIQUE   IV.   AND   THE 
CATHOLIC  KINGS 

1454-1516 

THE  literary  movement  of  Juan  II.'s  reign  is  overlapped 
and  continued  outside  Spain  by  poets  in  the  train  of 
Alfonso  V.  of  Aragon,  who,  conquering  Naples  in  1443, 
became  the  patron  of  scholars  like  George  of  Trebizond 
and  jEneas  Sylvius.  It  is  notable  that,  despite  their 
new  Italian  environment,  Alfonso's  singers  write  by  pre- 
ference in  Castilian  rather  than  in  their  native  Catalan. 
Their  work  is  to  be  sought  in  the  Cancionero  General,  in 
the  Cancionero  de  burlas  provocantes  d  risa,  and  especially 
in  the  Cancionero  de  Stuniga,  which  derives  its  name  from 
the  accident  that  the  first  two  poems  in  the  collection 
are  by  Lope  de  Stuniga,  cousin  of  that  Suero  de  Quiftones 
who  held  the  Paso  Honroso,  mentioned  under  Lena's  name 
in  the  previous  chapter.  Stuniga  prolongs  the  courtly 
tradition  in  verses  whose  extreme  finish  is  remarkable. 
Juan  de  Tapia,  Juan  de  Andujar,  and  Fernando  de  la 
Torre  practise  in  the  same  school  of  knightly  hedonism ; 
and  at  the  opposite  pole  is  Juan  de  Valladolid,  son  of  the 
public  executioner,  a  vagabond  minstrel,  who  passed  his 
life  in  coarse  polemics  with  Ant6n  de  Montero,  with 
Gomez  Manrique,  and  with  Manrique's  brother,  the 


109 


no  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Conde  de  Paredes.  A  notorious  name  is  that  of  Pero 
Torrellas,  whose  Coplas  de  las  calidadcs  de  las  donas  won 
their  author  repute  as  a  satirist  of  women,  and  begot 
innumerable  replies  and  counterpleas  :  the  satire,  to 
tell  the  truth,  is  poor  enough,  and  is  little  more  than 
violent  but  pointless  invective.  The  best  as  well  as  the 
most  copious  poet  of  the  Neapolitan  group  is  CARVAJAL 
(or  CARVAJALES),  who  bequeaths  us  the  earliest  known 
romance,  and  so  far  succumbs  to  circumstances  as  to  pro- 
duce occasional  verses  in  Italian.  In  Castilian,  Carvajal 
has  the  true  lyrical  cry,  and  is  further  distinguished  by  a 
virile,  martial  note,  in  admirable  contrast  with  the  insipid 
courtesies  of  his  brethren. 

To  return  to  Spain,  where,  in  accordance  with  the 
maxim  that  one  considerable  poet  begets  many  poet- 
asters, countless  rhymesters  spring  from  Mena's  loins. 
The  briefest  mention  must  suffice  for  the  too-celebrated 
Coplas  del  Provincial,  which,  to  judge  by  the  extracts 
printed  from  its  hundred  and  forty-nine  stanzas,  is  a 
prurient  lampoon  against  private  persons.  It  lacks 
neither  vigour  nor  wit,  and  denotes  a  mastery  of  mordant 
phrase:  but  the  general  effect  of  its  obscene  malignity 
is  to  make  one  sympathise  with  the  repeated  attempts 
at  its  suppression.  The  attribution  to  Rodrigo  Cota 
of  this  perverse  performance  is  capricious  :  internal 
evidence  goes  to  show  that  the  libel  is  the  work  of 
several  hands. 

A  companion  piece  of  far  greater  merit  is  found  in 
thirty-two  octosyllabic  stanzas  entitled  Coplas  de  Mingo 
Revulgo.  Like  the  Coplas  del  Provincial,  this  satirical 
eclogue  has  been  referred  to  Rodrigo  Cota,  and,  like 
many  other  anonymous  works,  it  has  been  ascribed  to 
Mena.  Neither  conjecture  is  supported  by  evidence. 


MINGO  REVULGO  in 

and  Sarmiento's  ascription  of  Mingo  Revulgo  to  Her- 
nando  del  Pulgar,  who  wrote  an  elaborate  commentary 
on  it,  rests  on  the  puerile  assumption  that  "  none  but  the 
poet  could  have  commented  himself  with  such  clearness." 
Two  shepherds — Mingo  Revulgo  and  Gil  Aribato — re- 
present the  lower  and  upper  class  respectively,  discussing 
the  abuses  of  society.  Gil  Aribato  blames  the  people, 
whose  vices  are  responsible  for  corruption  in  high 
places  ;  Mingo  Revulgo  contends  that  the  dissolute  King 
should  bear  the  blame  for  the  ruin  of  the  state,  and 
the  argument  ends  by  lauding  the  golden  mean  of  the 
burgess.  The  tone  of  Mingo  Revulgo  is  more  moderate 
than  that  of  the  Provincial ;  the  attacks  on  current  evils 
are  more  general,  more  discreet,  and  therefore  more 
deadly ;  and  the  aim  of  the  later  satire  is  infinitely 
more  serious  and  elevated.  Cast  in  dramatic  form, 
but  devoid  of  dramatic  action,  Mingo  Revulgo  leads 
directly  to  the  eclogues  of  Juan  del  Encina,  so  often 
called  the  father  of  the  Spanish  theatre ;  but  its  im- 
mediate interest  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  the  first  of 
effective  popular  satires. 

Among  the  poets  of  this  age,  the  Jewish  convert, 
ANT6N  DE  MONTORO,  el  Ropero  (1404- 71480),  holds  a 
place  apart.  A  fellow  of  parts,  Montoro  combined 
verse-making  with  tailoring,  and  his  trade  is  frequently 
thrown  in  his  teeth  by  rivals  smarting  under  his  bitter 
insolence.  Save  when  he  pleads  manfully  for  his  kins- 
folk, who  are  persecuted  and  slaughtered  by  a  blood- 
thirsty mob,  Montoro's  serious  efforts  are  mostly  failures. 
His  picaresque  verses,  especially  those  addressed  to  Juan 
de  Valladolid,  are  replenished  with  a  truculent  gaiety 
which  amuses  us  almost  as  much  as  it  amused  Santillana  ; 
but  he  should  be  read  in  extracts  rather  than  at  length. 


H2  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

He  is  suspected  of  complicity  in  the  Coplas  del  Provincial, 
and  there  is  good  ground  for  thinking  that  to  him  belong 
the  two  most  scandalous  pieces  in  the  Cancionero  de  burlas 
provocantes  d  risa — namely,  the  Pleito  del  Manto  (Suit  of 
the  Coverlet),  and  a  certain  unmentionable  comedy  which 
purports  to  be  by  Fray  Montesino,  and  travesties  Mena's 
Trescientas  in  terms  of  extreme  filthiness.  Montoro's  short 
pieces  are  reminiscent  of  Juan  Ruiz,  and,  for  all  his  in- 
decency, it  is  fair  to  credit  him  with  much  cleverness  and 
with  uncommon  technical  skill.  His  native  vulgarity 
betrays  him  into  excesses  of  ribaldry  which  mar  the 
proper  exercise  of  his  undeniable  gifts. 

A  better  man  and  a  better  writer  is  JUAN  ALVAREZ 
GATO  (71433-96),  the  Madrid  knight  of  whom  G6mez 
Manrique  says  that  he  "spoke  pearls  and  silver."  It  is 
difficult  for  us  to  judge  him  on  his  merits,  for,  though 
his  cancionero  exists,  it  has  not  yet  been  printed  ;  and 
we  are  forced  to  study  him  as  he  is  represented  in 
the  Cancionero  General,  where  his  love-songs  show  a 
dignity  of  sentiment  and  an  exquisiteness  of  expression 
not  frequent  in  any  epoch,  and  exceptional  in  his  own 
time.  His  sacred  lyrics,  the  work  of  his  old  age,  lack 
unction  :  but  even  here  his  mastery  of  form  saves  his 
pious  -villancicos  from  oblivion,  and  ranks  him  as  the  best 
of  Encina's  predecessors.  His  friend,  Hernan  Mexi'a, 
follows  Pero  Torrellas  with  a  satire  on  the  foibles  of 
women,  in  which  he  easily  outdoes  his  model  in  mis- 
chievous wit  and  in  ingenious  fancy. 

GOMEZ  MANRIQUE,  Senor  de  Villazopeque  (1412-91), 
is  a  poet  of  real  distinction,  whose  entire  works  have  been 
reprinted  from  two  complementary  cancioneros  discovered 
in  1885.  Sprung  from  a  family  illustrious  in  Spanish 
history,  Gomez  Manrique  was  a  foremost  leader  in  the 


GOMEZ   MANRIQUE  113 

rebellion  of  the  Castilian  nobles  against  Enrique  IV.  In 
allegorical  pieces  like  the  Batalla  de  amores,  he  frankly 
imitates  the  Galician  model,  and  in  one  instance  he 
replies  to  a  certain  Don  Alvaro  in  Portuguese.  Then 
he  joins  himself  to  the  rising  Italian  school,  wherein  his 
uncle,  Santillana,  had  preceded  him  ;  and  his  experiments 
extend  to  adaptations  of  Sem  Tob's  sententious  moralis- 
ings,  to  didactic  poems  in  the  manner  of  Mena,  and  to 
coplas  on  Juan  de  Valladolid,  in  which  he  measures 
himself  unsuccessfully  with  the  rude  tailor,  Montoro. 
Humour  was  not  Gomez  Manrique's  calling,  and  his 
attention  to  form  is  an  obvious  preoccupation  which 
diminishes  his  vigour:  but  his  chivalrous  refinement 
and  noble  tenderness  are  manifest  in  his  answer  to 
Torrellas'  invective.  His  pathos  is  nowhere  more  touch- 
ing than  in  the  elegiacs  on  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega  ;  while 
in  the  lines  to  his  wife,  Juana  de  Mendoza,  Gomez  Man- 
rique  portrays  the  fleetingness  of  life,  the  sting  of  death, 
with  almost  incomparable  beauty. 

His  Representation  del  Nadmiento  de  Nuestro  Senor,  the 
earliest  successor  to  the  Misterio  de  los  Reyes  Magos,  is  a 
liturgical  drama  written  for  and  played  at  the  convent 
of  Calabazanos,  of  which  his  sister  was  Superior.  It 
consists  of  twenty  octosyllabic  stanzas  delivered  by  the 
Virgin,  St.  Joseph,  St.  Gabriel,  St.  Michael,  St.  Raphael, 
an  angel,  and  three  shepherds,  the  whole  closing  with  a 
cradle-song.  Simple  as  the  construction  is,  it  is  more 
elaborate  than  that  of  a  later  play  on  the  Passion,  wherein 
the  Virgin,  St.  John,  and  the  Magdalen  appear  (though 
the  last  takes  no  part  in  the  dialogue).  The  refrain  or 
estribillo  at  the  end  of  each  stanza  goes  to  show  that  this 
piece  was  intended  to  be  sung.  These  primitive  essays 
in  the  hieratic  drama  have  all  the  interest  of  what  was 


H4  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

virtually  a  new  invention,  and  their  historical  importance 
is  only  exceeded  by  that  of  a  secular  play,  written  by 
G6mez  Manrique  for  the  birthday  of  Alfonso,  brother  of 
Enrique  IV.,  in  which  the  Infanta  Isabel  played  one  of 
the  Muses.  In  all  three  experiments  the  action  is  of  the 
slightest,  though  the  dialogue  is  as  dramatic  as  can  be 
expected  from  a  first  attempt.  The  point  to  be  noted 
is  that  G6mez  Manrique  foreshadows  both  the  lay  and 
sacred  elements  of  the  Spanish  theatre. 

His  fame  has  been  unjustly  eclipsed  by  that  of  his 
nephew,  JORGE  MANRIQUE,  Seftor  de  Belmontejo  (1440- 
1478),  a  brilliant  soldier  and  partisan  of  Queen  Isabel's, 
who  perished  in  an  encounter  before  the  gates  of  Garci- 
Munoz,  and  is  renowned  by  reason  of  a  single  master- 
piece. His  verses  are  mostly  to  be  found  in  the  Cancionero 
General,  and  a  few  are  given  in  the  cancioneros  of  Seville 
and  Toledo.  Like  that  of  his  uncle,  G6mez,  his  vein 
of  humour  is  thin  and  poor,  and  the  satiric  stanzas  to 
his  stepmother  border  on  vulgarity.  In  acrostic  love- 
songs  and  in  other  compositions  of  a  like  character,  Jorge 
Manrique  is  merely  clever  in  the  artificial  style  of  many 
contemporaries — is  merely  a  careful  craftsman  absorbed 
in  the  technical  details  of  art,  with  small  merit  beyond 
that  of  formal  dexterity.  The  forty-three  stanzas  entitled 
the  Coplas  de  Jorge  Manrique  por  la  muerte  de  su  padre, 
have  brought  their  writer  an  immortality  which,  outliving 
all  freaks  of  taste,  seems  as  secure  as  Cervantes'  own. 
An  attempt  has  been  made  to  prove  that  Jorge  Manrique's 
elegiacs  on  his  father  are  not  original,  and  that  the  elegist 
had  some  knowledge  of  Abu  '1-Baka  Salih  ar-Rundi's 
poem  on  the  decadence  of  the  Moslem  power  in  Spain. 
Undoubtedly  Valera  has  so  ingeniously  rendered  the 
Arab  poet  as  to  make  the  resemblance  seem  pronounced  : 


JORGE  MANRIQUE  115 

but  the  theory  is  untenable,  for  it  is  not  pretended  that 
Jorge  Manrique  could  read  Arabic,  and  lofty  common- 
places on  death  abound  in  all  literature,  from  the  Bible 
downwards. 

In  this  unique  composition  Jorge  Manrique  approves 
himself,  for  once,  a  poet  of  absolute  genius,  an  exquisite 
in  lyrical  orchestration.  The  poem  opens  with  a  slow 
movement,  a  solemn  lament  on  the  vanity  of  grandeur, 
the  frailty  of  life ;  it  modulates  into  resigned  acceptance 
of  an  inscrutable  decree ;  it  closes  with  a  superb  sym- 
phony, through  which  are  heard  the  voices  of  the 
seraphim  and  the  angelic  harps  of  Paradise.  The  work- 
manship is  of  almost  incomparable  excellence,  and  in 
scarcely  one  stanza  can  the  severest  criticism  find  a 
technical  flaw.  Jorge  Manrique's  sincerity  touched  a 
chord  which  vibrates  in  the  universal  heart,  and  his 
poem  attained  a  popularity  as  immediate  as  it  was 
imperishable.  CamOes  sought  to  imitate  it ;  writers 
like  Montemor  and  Silvestre  glossed  it ;  Lope  de  Vega 
declared  that  it  should  be  written  in  letters  of  gold  ;  it 
was  done  into  Latin  and  set  to  music  in  the  sixteenth 
century  by  Venegas  de  Henestrosa ;  and  in  our  century 
it  has  been  admirably  translated  by  Longfellow  in  a 
version  from  which  these  stanzas  are  taken  : — 

"  Behold  of  what  delusive  worth 
The  bubbles  we  pursue  on  earth, 

The  shapes  we  chase 
Amid  a  world  of  treachery ; 
They  "vanish  ere  death  shuts  the  eye, 
And  leave  no  trace. 

Time  steals  tJtem  from  us, — chances  strange^ 
Disastrous  accidents,  and  change, 
That  come  to  all; 


u6  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Even  in  the  most  exalted  state, 
Relentless  sweeps  the  stroke  of  fate; 
The  strongest  fall. 

Tell  me, — the  charms  that  lovers  seek 
In  the  clear  eye  and  blushing  cheek, 

The  hues  that  play 
Oer  rosy  lip  and  brow  of  snow, 
When  hoary  age  approaches  slow, 

Ah,  where  are  they?  .  .  . 

Tourney  and  joust,  that  charmed  the  eye, 
And  scarf,  and  gorgeous  panoply, 

And  nodding  plume, — 
What  were  they  but  a  pageant  scene  f 
What  but  the  garlands  gay  and  green. 

That  deck  the  tomb  ?  .  .  . 

0  Death,  no  more,  no  more  delay ; 
My  spirit  longs  to  flee  away, 

And  be  at  rest; 
The  will  of  Heaven  my  will  shall  be,— 

1  bow  to  the  divine  decree, 

To  God's  behest.  .  .  . 

His  soul  to  Him  who  gave  it  rose  : 
God  lead  it  to  its  long  repose, 

Its  glorious  rest! 

And  though  the  warrior's  sun  has  set, 
Its  light  shall  linger  round  us  yet, 

Bright,  radiant,  blest." 

By  the  side  of  this  achievement  the  remaining  poems 
of  Enrique  IV.'s  reign  seem  wan  and  withered.  But 
mention  is  due  to  the  Sevillan,  Pedro  Guillen  de  Segovia 
(1413-74),  who,  beginning  life  under  the  patronage  of 
Alvaro  de  Luna,  Santillana,  and  Mena,  passes  into  the 
household  of  the  alchemist-archbishop  Carrillo,  and  pro- 
claims himself  a  disciple  of  G6mez  Manrique.  His  chief 
performance  is  his  metrical  version  of  the  Seven  Peni- 


PALENCIA  117 

tential  Psalms,  which  is  remarkable  as  being  the  first 
attempt  at  introducing  the  biblical  element  into  Spanish 
literature. 

Prose  is  represented  by  the  Segovian,  Diego  Enriquez 
del  Castillo  (fl.  1470),  chaplain  and  privy  councillor  to 
Enrique  IV.,  whose  official  Cronica  he  drew  up  in  a  spirit 
of  candid  impartiality  ;  but  there  is  ground  for  suspecting 
that  he  revised  his  manuscript  after  the  King's  death. 
Charged  with  speeches  and  addresses,  his  history  is  written 
with  pompous  correctness,  and  it  seems  probable  that 
the  wily  trimmer  so  chose  his  sonorous  ambiguities  of 
phrase  as  to  avoid  offending  either  his  sovereign  or 
the  rebel  magnates  whose  triumph  he  foresaw.  Another 
chronicle  of  this  reign  is  ascribed  to  Alfonso  Fernandez 
de  Palencia  (1423-92),  who  is  also  rashly  credited  with 
the  authorship  of  the  Coplas  del  Provincial ;  but  it  is  not 
proved  that  Palencia  wrote  any  other  historical  work 
than  his  Latin  Gesta  Hispaniensia,  a  mordant  presenta- 
tion of  the  time's  corruptions.  The  Castilian  chronicle 
which  passes  under  his  name  is  a  rough  translation 
of  the  Gesta,  made  without  the  writer's  authority. 
Its  involved  periods,  some  of  them  a  chapter  long, 
are  very  remote  from  the  admirably  vigorous  style  of 
Palencia's  allegorical  Batalla  campal  entre  los  lobos  y  los 
Perros  (Pitched  Battle  between  Wolves  and  Dogs),  and 
his  patriotic  Perfection  del  triunfo  militar,  wherein  he 
vaunts,  not  without  reason,  his  countrymen  as  among 
the  best  fighting  men  in  Europe.  Palencia's  gravest 
defect  is  his  tendency  to  Latinise  his  construction,  as  in 
his  poor  renderings  of  Plutarch  and  Josephus.  But  at  his 
best  he  writes  with  ease  and  force  and  distinction.  The 
Cronica  de  hechos  del  Condestable  Miguel  Lucas  Iranzo, 
possibly  the  work  of  Juan  de  Olid,  is  in  no  sense  the 


n8  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

history  it  professes  to  be,  and  is  valuable  mainly  because 
of  its  picturesque,  yet  simple  and  natural  digressions  on 
the  social  life  of  Spain. 

The  very  year  of  the  Catholic  King's  accession  (1474) 
coincides  with  the  introduction  of  the  art  of  printing  into 
Spain.  Ticknor  dates  this  event  as  happening  in  1468, 
remarking  that  "  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  the  matter." 
Unluckily,  the  book  upon  which  he  relies  is  erroneously 
dated.  Les  Trobes  en  lahors  de  la  Verge  Maria — the  first 
volume  printed  in  Spain — is  a  collection  of  devout  verses 
in  Valencian,  by  forty-four  poets,  mostly  Catalans.  Of 
these,  Francisco  de  Castellvi,  Francisco  Barcelo,  Pedro 
de  Civillar,  and  an  anonymous  singer — Hum  Castelld  sens 
nom — write  in  Castilian.  From  1474  onward,  printing- 
presses  multiply,  and  versions  of  masters  like  Dante, 
Boccaccio,  and  Petrarch,  made  by  Pedro  Fernandez 
de  Villegas,  by  Alvar  G6mez,  and  by  Antonio  de 
Obreg6n,  are  printed  in  quick  succession.  Hencefor- 
ward the  best  models  are  available  beyond  a  small 
wealthy  circle ;  but  the  results  of  this  popularisation 
are  not  immediate. 

Inigo  de  Mendoza,  a  gallant  and  a  Franciscan,  appears 
as  a  disciple  of  Mena  and  G6mez  Manrique  in  his  Vita 
Christiy  which  halts  at  the  Massacre  of  the  Innocents. 
Fray  f  fiigo  is  too  prone  to  digressions,  and  to  misplaced 
satire  mimicked  from  Mingo  Revulgo,  yet  his  verses  have 
a  pleasing,  unconventional  charm  in  their  adaptation  to 
devout  purpose  of  such  lyric  forms  as  the  romance  and 
the  villancico.  His  fellow-monk,  Ambrosio  Montesino, 
Isabel's  favourite  poet,  conveys  to  Spain  the  Italian 
realism  of  Jacopone  da  Todi  in  his  Visitacidn  de  Nuestra 
Seftora,  and  in  hymns  fitted  to  the  popular  airs  preserved 


PADILLA  119 

in  Asenjo  Barbieri's  Cancionero  Musical  de  los  siglos  xv.y 
xvi.  This  embarrassing  condition,  joined  to  the  writer's 
passion  for  conciseness,  results  in  hard  effects  ;  yet,  at 
his  best,  he  pipes  "a  simple  song  for  thinking  hearts," 
and,  as  Menendez  y  Pelayo,  the  chief  of  Spanish  critics, 
observes,  Montesino's  historic  interest  lies  in  his  suffus- 
ing popular  verse  with  the  spirit  of  mysticism,  and  in 
his  transmuting  the  popular  forms  of  song  into  artistic 
forms. 

Space  fails  for  contemporary  authors  of  esparsas,  decires> 
resquestas,  more  or  less  ingenious ;  but  we  cannot  omit 
the  name  of  the  Carthusian,  JUAN  DE  PADILLA  (1468- 
71522),  who  suffers  from  an  admirer's  indiscretion  in 
calling  him  "the  Spanish  Homer."  His  Retablo  de  la 
Vida  de  Cristo  versifies  the  Saviour's  life  in  the  manner 
of  Juvencus,  and  his  more  elaborate  poem,  Los  doce 
triunfos  de  los  doce  Apostoles,  strives  to  fuse  Dante's 
severity  with  Petrarch's  grace.  Rhetorical  out  of  season, 
and  tending  to  abuse  his  sonorous  vocabulary,  Padilla 
indulges  in  verbal  eccentricities  and  in  sudden  drops  from 
altisonance  to  familiarity ;  but  in  his  best  passages — his 
journey  through  hell  and  purgatory,  guided  by  St.  Paul — 
he  excels  by  force  of  vision,  by  his  realisation  of  the 
horror  of  the  grave,  and  by  his  vigorous  transcription  of 
the  agonies  of  the  lost.  The  allegorical  form  is  again 
found  in  the  Infierno  del  A  -mor  of  Garci  Sanchez  de  Bada- 
joz,  who  ended  life  in  a  madhouse.  His  presentation 
of  Macias,  Rodriguez  del  Padr6n,  Santillana,  and  Jorge 
Manrique  in  thrall  to  love's  enchantments,  was  to  the 
taste  of  his  time,  and  a  poem  with  the  same  title,  Infierno 
del  Amor,  made  the  reputation  of  a  certain  Guevara, 
whose  scattered  songs  are  full  of  picaresque  and  biting 
wit.  For  the  rest,  Sdnchez  de  Badajoz  depends  upon 


120  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

his  daring,  almost  blasphemous  humour,  his  facility  in 
improvising,  and  his  mastery  of  popular  forms. 

Of  the  younger  poetic  generation,  PEDRO  MANUEL  DE 
URREA  (1486-?  1530)  is  the  most  striking  artist.  His 
Peregrinacidn  d  Jersuattn  and  his  Penitencia  de  Amor  are 
practically  inaccessible,  but  his  Cancionero  displays  an 
ingenious  and  versatile  talent.  Urrea's  aristocratic  spirit 
revolts  at  the  thought  that  in  this  age  of  printing  his 
songs  will  be  read  "in  cellars  and  kitchens,"  and  the 
publication  of  his  verses  seems  due  to  his  mother.  His 
Fiestas  de  Amor,  translated  from  Petrarch,  are  tedious, 
but  he  has  a  perfect  mastery  of  the  popular  d&ima,  and 
his  villancicos  abound  in  quips  of  fancy  matched  by 
subtleties  of  expression.  Urrea  fails  when  he  closes  a 
stanza  with  a  Latin  tag  —  a  dubious  adonic,  such  as 
Dominus  tecum.  He  fares  better  with  his  modification 
of  Jorge  Manrique's  stanza,  approving  his  skill  in  modu- 
latory  effects.  His  most  curious  essay  is  his  verse 
rendering  of  the  Celestina's  first  act ;  for  here  he  antici- 
pates the  very  modes  of  Lope  de  Vega  and  of  Tirso  de 
Molina.  But  in  his  own  day  he  was  not  the  sole  prac- 
titioner in  dramatic  verse. 

A  distinct  progress  in  this  direction  is  made  by 
RODRIGO  COTA  DE  MAGUAQUE  (fl.  1490),  a  convert  Jew, 
who  incited  the  mob  to  massacre  his  brethren.  Wrongly 
reputed  the  author  of  the  Coplas  del  Provincial,  of  Mingo 
Revulgo,  and  of  the  Celestina,  Cota  is  the  parent  of  fifty- 
eight  quatrains,  in  the  form  of  a  burlesque  wedding-song, 
recently  discovered  by  M.  Foulche-Delbosc.  But  Cota's 
place  in  literature  is  ensured  by  his  celebrated  Didlogo 
entre  el  Amor  y  un  Viejo.  In  seventy  stanzas  Love  and 
the  Ancient  argue  the  merits  of  love,  till  the  latter  yields 
to  the  persuasion  of  the  god,  who  then  derides  the  hoary 


ENCINA  121 

amorist.  The  dialogue  is  eminently  dramatic  both  in 
form  and  spirit,  the  action  convincing,  clear,  and  rapid, 
while  the  versification  is  marked  by  an  exquisite  melody. 
It  is  not  known  that  the  Didlogo  was  ever  played,  yet  it 
is  singularly  fitted  for  scenic  presentation. 

The  earliest  known  writer  for  the  stage  among  the 
moderns  was,  as  we  have  already  said,  G6mez  Man- 
rique;  but  earlier  spectacles  are  frequently  mentioned  in 
fifteenth-century  chronicles.  These  may  be  divided  into 
entremeses,  a  term  loosely  applied  to  balls  and  tourneys, 
accompanied  by  chorus-singing  ;  and  into  momos,  enter- 
tainments which  took  on  a  more  literary  character,  and 
which  found  excuses  for  dramatic  celebrations  at  Christ- 
mas and  Eastertide.  G6mez  Manrique  had  made  a  step 
forward,  but  his  pieces  are  primitive  and  fragmentary 
compared  to  those  of  JUAN  DEL  ENCINA  (1468-1534). 
A  story  given  in  the  scandalous  Pleito  del  Manto  reppjris 
that  Encina  was  the  son  of  Pero  TorreTfas,  arid  another 
idle  tale  declares  him  to  be  Juan  de  Tamayo.  The  latter 
is  proved  a  blunder;  the  former  is  discredited  by  Encina's 
solemn  cursing  of  Torrellas.  Encina  passed  from  the 
University  of  Salamanca  to  the  household  of  the  Duke 
of  Alba  (1493),  was  present  next  year  at  the  siege  of 
Granada,  and  celebrated  the  victory  in  his  Triunfo^de^ 
fama.  Leaving  for  Italy  in  1498,  he  is  found  at  Rome  in 
1502,  a  favourite  with  that  Spanish  Pope,  Alexander  VI. 
He  returned  to  Spain,  took  orders,  and  sang  his  first 
mass  at  Jerusalem  in  1519,  at  which  date  he  was  ap- 
pointed Prior  of  the  Monastery  of  Le6n.  He  is  thought 
to  have  died  at  Salamanca. 

Encina  began  writing  in  his  teens,  and  has  left  us  over 
a  hundred  and  seventy  lyrics,  composd  before  he  was 
twenty-five  years  old.  Nearly  eighty  pieces,  with  musical 


122  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

v 

settings  by  the  author,  are  given  in  Asenjo  Barbieri's 
Cancionero  Musical.  His  songs,  when  jundisfigured  by 
deliberate  conceits,  are  full  of  devotional  charm.  Still, 
Enema  abides  with  us  in  virtue  of  his  eclogues,  the 
first  two  being  given  in  the  presence  of  his  patrons  at 
Alba  de  Tormes,  probably  in  1492.  His  plays  are  four- 
teen in  number,  and  were  undoubtedly  staged.  Ticknor 
would  persuade  us  that  the  seventh  and  eighth,  though 
really  one  piece,  "  with  a  pause  between,"  were  separated 
by  the  poet  "  in  his  simplicity."  Even  Encina's  simpli- 
city may  be  overstated,  and  Ticknor's  "pause"  must 
have  been  long :  for  the  seventh  eclogue  was  played  in 
1494,  and  the  eighth  in  1495.  His  eclogues  are  eclogues 
only  in  name,  being  dramatic  presentations  of  primitive 
themes,  with  a  distinct  but  simple  action.  The  occasion 
is  generally  a  feast-day,  and  the  subject  is  sometimes 
sacred.  Yet  not  always  so  :  the  Egloga  de  Fileno  dra- 
matises the  shepherd's  passion  for  Lefira,  and  ends 
with  a  suicide  suggested  by  the  Celestina.  In  like  wise, 
Encina's  Pldcida  y  Vitoriano,  involving  two  attempted 
suicides  and  one  scabrous  scene,  introduces  Venus  and 
Mercury  as  characters.  Again,  the  Aucto  del  Repelon 
dramatises  the  adventures  in  the  market-place  of  two 
shepherds,  Johan  Paramas  and  Piernicurto  ;  while  Cris- 
tinoy  Febea  exhibits  the  ignominious  downfall  of  a  would- 
be  hermit  in  phrases  redolent  of  Cota's  Didlogo.  Simple 
as  the  motives  are,  they  are  skilfully  treated,  and  the  ver- 
sification, especially  in  Pldcida  y  Vitoriano,  is  pure  and 
elegant.  Encina  elaborates  the  strictly  liturgical  drama 
to  its  utmost  point,  and  his  younger  contemporary,  Lucas 
Fernandez,  makes  no  further  progress,  for  the  obvious 
reason  that  no  novelty  was  possible  without  incurring 
a  charge  of  heresy.  As  Sr.  Cotarelo  y  Mori  has  pointed 


AMADlS  DE  GAULA  123 

out,  the  sacred  drama  remains  undeveloped  till  the  lives 
of  saints  and  the  theological  mysteries  are  exploited  by 
men  of  genius.  Meanwhile,  Encina  has  begun  the  move- 
ment which  culminates  in  the  autos  of  Calderon. 

In  another  direction,  the  Spanish  version  of  Amadis  de 
Gaula  (1508)  marks  an  epoch.  This  story  was  known  to 
Ayala  and  three  other  singers  in  Baena's  chorus ;  and  the 
probability  is  that  the  lost  original  was  written  in  Portu- 
guese by  Joham  de  Lobeira  (1261-1325),  who  uses  in  the 
Colocci-Brancuti  Canzoniere  (No.  230)  the  same  ritour- 
nelle  that  Oriana  sings  in  Amadis.  GARCIA  ORDONEZ  DE 
MONTALVO  (fl.  1500)  admits  that  three-fourths  of  his 
book  is  mere  translation  ;  and  it  may  be  that  he  was  not 
the  earliest  Spaniard  to  annex  the  story,  which,  in  the 
first  instance,  derives  from  France.  Amadis  of  Gaul  is 
a  British  knight,  and,  though  the  geography  is  bewil- 
dering, "Gaul"  stands  for  Wales,  as  "Bristoya"  and 
"  Vindilisora"  stand  for  Bristol  and  Windsor.  The 
chronology  is  no  less  puzzling,  for  the  action  occurs 
"not  many  years  after  the  Passion  of  our  Redeemer." 
Briefly,  the  book  deals  with  the  chequered  love  of 
Amadis  for  Oriana,  daughter  of  Lisuarte,  King  of  Britain. 
Spells  incredible,  combats  with  giants,  miraculous  inter- 
positions, form  the  tissue  of  episode,  till  fidelity  is  re- 
warded, and  Amadis  made  happy. 

Cervantes'  Barber,  classing  the  book  as  "the  best  in 
that  kind,"  saved  it  from  the  holocaust,  and  posterity 
has  accepted  the  Barber's  sentence.  Amadls  is  at  least 
the  only  chivalresque  novel  that  man  need  read.  The 
style  is  excellent,  and,  though  the  tale  is  too  long- 
drawn,  the  adventures  are  interesting,  the  supernatural 
machinery  is  plausibly  arranged,  and  the  plot  is  skil- 
fully directed.  Later  stories  are  mostly  burlesques  of 


124  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

Amadis :  the  giants  grow  taller,  the  monsters  fiercer,  the 
lakes  deeper,  the  torments  sharper.  In  his  Sergas  de 
Esplandidn,  Montalvo  fails  when  he  attempts  to  take 
up  the  story  at  the  end  of  Amadis.  One  tedious  sequel 
followed  another  till,  within  half  a  century,  we  have 
a  thirteenth  Amadis.  The  best  of  its  successors  is  Luis 
Hurtado's  (or,  perhaps,  Francisco  de  Moraes')  Palmerin 
de  Inglaterra,  which  Cervantes'  Priest  would  have  kept 
in  such  a  casket  as  "  that  which  Alexander  found  among 
Darius'  spoils,  intended  to  guard  the  works  of  Homer." 
Nor  is  this  mere  irony.  Burke  avowed  in  the  House  of 
Commons  that  he  had  spent  much  time  over  Palmerin, 
and  Johnson  wasted  a  summer  upon  Felixmarte  de  Hir- 
cania.  Wearisome  as  the  kind  was,  its  popularity  was  so 
unbounded  that  Hieronym  Sempere,  in  the  Caballeria 
cristiana,  applied  the  chivalresque  formula  to  religious' 
allegory,  introducing  Christ  as  the  Knight  of  the  Lion, 
Satan  as  the  Knight  of  the  Serpent,  and  the  Apostles  as 
the  Twelve  Knights  of  the  Round  Table.  Of  its  class, 
Amadis  de  Gaula  is  the  first  and  best. 

From  an  earlier  version  of  Amadis  derives  the  Cdrcel 
de  Amor  of  Diego  San  Pedro,  the  writer  of  some  erotic 
verses  in  the  Cancionero  de  burlas.  San  Pedro  tells  the 
story  of  the  loves  of  Leriano  and  Laureola,  mingled 
with  much  allegory  and  chivalresque  sentiment.  The 
construction  is  weak,  but  the  style  is  varied,  delicate, 
and  distinguished.  Ending  with  a  panegyric  on  women, 
"who,  no  less  than  cardinals,  bequeath  us  the  theo- 
logical virtues,"  the  book  was  banned  by  the  Inquisition. 
But  nothing  stayed  its  course,  and,  despite  all  prohibi- 
tions, it  was  reprinted  times  out  of  number.  The  Cdrcel 
de  Amor  ends  with  a  striking  scene  of  suicide,  which  was 
borrowed  by  many  later  novelists. 


ROJAS  125 

The  first  instance  of  its  annexation  occurs  in  the 
Tragicomedia  de  Calisto  y  Melibea,  better  known  as  the 
Celestina.  This  remarkable  book,  first  published  (as  it 
seems)  at  Burgos,  in  1499,  has  been  classed  as  a  play, 
or  as  a  novel  in  dialogue.  Its  length  would  make  it 
impossible  on  the  boards,  and  its  influence  is  most 
marked  on  the  novel.  As  first  published,  it  had  sixteen 
acts,  extended  later  to  twenty-one,  and  in  some  editions 
to  twenty-two.  On  the  authority  of  Rojas,  anxious  as 
to  the  Inquisition,  the  first  and  longest  act  has  been 
attributed  to  Mena  and  to  Cota  ;  but  the  prose  is  vastly 
superior  to  Mena's,  while  the  verse  is  no  less  inferior 
to  the  lyrism  of  Cota's  Didlogo.  There  is  small  doubt 
but  that  the  whole  is  the  work  of  the  lawyer  FERNANDO 
DE  ROJAS,  a  native  of  Montalban,  who  became  Alcaide 
of  Salamanca,  and  died,  at  a  date  unknown,  at  Talavera 
de  la  Reina. 

The  tale  is  briefly  told.  Calisto,  rebuffed  by  Melibea, 
employs  the  procuress  Celestina,  who  arranges  a  meeting 
between  the  lovers.  But  destiny  works  a  speedy  expia- 
tion :  Celestina  is  murdered  by  Calisto's  servants,  Calisto 
is  accidentally  killed,  and  Melibea  destroys  herself  before 
her  father,  whom  she  addresses  in  a  set  speech  suggested 
by  the  Cdrcel  de  Amor.  Celestina  is  developed  from 
Ruiz'  Trota-conventos ;  Rojas'  lovers,  Calisto  and  Meli- 
bea, from  Ruiz'  Mel6n  and  Endrina  ;  and  some  hints  are 
drawn  from  Alfonso  Martinez  de  Toledo.  But,  despite 
these  borrowings,  we  have  to  deal  with  a  completely 
original  masterpiece,  unique  in  its  kind.  We  are  no 
longer  in  an  atmosphere  thick  with  impossible  monsters 
in  incredible  circumstances  :  we  are  in  the  very  grip  of 
life,  in  commerce  with  elemental,  strait  passions. 

Rojas  is  the  first  Spanish  novelist  who  brings  a  con* 


126  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

science  to  his  work,  who  aims  at  more  than  whiling 
away  an  idle  hour.  He  is  not  great  in  incident,  his  plot 
is  clumsily  fashioned,  the  pedantry  of  his  age  fetters  him ; 
but  in  effects  of  artistry,  in  energy  of  phrasing,  he  is  un- 
matched by  his  coevals.  Though  he  invented  the  comic 
type  which  was  to  become  the  gracioso  of  Calder6n,  his 
humour  is  thin  ;  on  the  other  hand,  his  realism  and 
his  pessimistic  fulness  are  above  praise.  Choosing  for 
his  subject  the  tragedy  of  illicit  passion,  he  hit  on  the 
means  of  exhibiting  all  his  powers.  His  purpose  is  to 
give  a  transcript  of  life,  objective  and  impersonal,  and 
he  fulfils  it,  adding  thereunto  a  mysterious  touch  of 
sombre  imagination.  His  characters  are  not  Byzantine 
emperors  and  queens  of  Cornwall :  he  traffics  in  the 
passions  of  plain  men  and  women,  the  agues  of  the  love- 
sick, the  crafts  of  senile  vice,  the  venality  and  vauntings 
of  picaroons,  the  effrontery  of  croshabells.  Hence,  from 
the  first  hour,  his  book  took  the  world  by  storm,  was 
imprinted  in  countless  editions,  was  continued  by  Juan 
Sedefto  and  Feliciano  da  Silva — the  same  whose  "  reason 
of  the  unreasonableness"  so  charmed  Don  Quixote — 
was  imitated  by  Sancho  Muft6n  in  Lisandro  y  Roselia, 
was  used  by  Lope  de  Vega  in  the  Dorotea,  and  was 
passed  from  the  Spanish  stage  to  be  glorified  as  Romeo 
and  Juliet. 

Between  the  years  1508-12  was  composed  the  anony- 
mous Cuestidn  de  Amor,  a  semi-historical,  semi-social 
novel  wherein  contemporaries  figure  under  feigned 
names,  some  of  which  are  deciphered  by  the  industry 
of  Signer  Croce,  who  reveals  Belisena,  for  example,  as 
Bona  Sforza,  afterwards  Queen  of  Poland.  Though 
much  of  its  first  success  was  due  to  the  curiosity  which 
commonly  attaches  to  any  roman  a  clef,  it  still  interests 


PULGAR:   COLUMBUS  127 

because  of  its  picturesque  presentation  of  Spanish 
society  in  Italian  surroundings,  and  the  excellence  of 
its  Castilian  style  was  approved  by  that  sternest  among 
critics,  Juan  de  Valdes. 

History  is  represented  by  the  Historia  de  los  Reyes 
catdlicos  of  Andres  Bernaldez  (d.  1513),  parish  priest  of 
Los  Palacios,  near  Seville,  who  relates  with  spirit  and 
simplicity  the  triumphs  of  the  reign,  waxing  enthusiastic 
over  the  exploits  of  his  friend  Columbus.  A  more  am- 
bitious historian  is  HERNANDO  DEL  PULGAR  (1436-?  1492), 
whose  Claras  Varones  de  Castillo,  is  a  brilliant  gallery  of 
portraits,  drawn  by  an  observer  who  took  Perez  de 
Guzman  for  his  master.  Pulgar's  Crdnica  de  los  Reyes 
catolicos  is  mere  official  historiography,  the  work  of  a 
flattering  partisan,  the  slave  of  flagrant  prejudice  ;  yet 
even  here  the  charm  of  manner  is  seductive,  though  the 
perdurable  value  of  the  annals  is  naught.  As  a  portrait- 
painter,  as  an  intelligent  analyst  of  character,  as  a  wielder 
of  Castilian  prose,  Pulgar  ranks  only  second  to  his  im- 
mediate model.  He  is  to  be  distinguished  from  another 
Hernando  del  Pulgar  (1451-1531),  who  celebrated  the 
exploits  of  the  great  captain,  Gonzalo  de  C6rdoba,  at  the 
request  of  Carlos  V.  In  this  case,  as  in  so  many  others, 
the  old  is  better. 

One  great  name,  that  of  Christopher  Columbus  or 
CRISTOBAL  COLON  (1440-1506)  is  inseparable  from  those 
of  the  Catholic  kings,  who  astounded  their  enemies  by 
their  ingratitude  to  the  man  who  gave  them  a  New 
World.  Mystic  and  adventurer,  Columbus  wrote  letters 
which  are  marked  by  sound  practical  sense,  albeit 
couched  in  the  apocalyptic  phrases  of  one  who  holds 
himself  for  a  seer  and  prophet.  Incorrect,  uncouth,  and 
rugged  as  is  his  syntax,  he  rises  on  occasion  to  heights 


128  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

of  eloquence  astonishing  in  a  foreigner.  But  it  is  per- 
haps imprudent  to  classify  such  a  man  as  Columbus 
by  his  place  of  birth.  An  exception  in  most  things,  he 
"was  probably  the  truest  Spaniard  in  all  the  Spains ;  and 
by  virtue  of  his  transcendent  genius,  visible  in  word  as 
in  action,  he  is  filed  upon  the  bede-roll  of  the  Spanish 
glories. 


.tr 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  AGE  OF  CARLOS  QUINTO 


WITH  the  arrival  of  printing-presses  in  1474  the  diffusion 
of  foreign  models  became  general  throughout  Spain. 
The  closing  years  of  the  reign  of  the  Catholic  Kings 
were  essentially  an  era  of  translation,  and  this  movement 
was  favoured  by  high  patronage.  The  King,  Fernando, 
was  the  pupil  of  Vidal  de  Noya;  the  Queen,  Isabel, 
studied  under  Beatriz  Galindo,  la  latina  ;  and  Luis  Vives 
reports  that  their  daughter,  Mad  Juana,  could  and  did,/'^)^ 
deliver  impromptu  Latin  speeches  to  the  deputies  of  the 
Low  Countries.  Throughout  the  land  Italian  scholars 
preached  the  gospel  of  the  Renaissance.  The  brothers 
Geraldino  (Alessandro  and  Antonio)  taught  the  children 
of  the  royal  house.  Peter  Martyr,  the  Lombard,  boasts 
that  the  intellectual  chieftains  of  Castile  sat,  at  his  feet  ; 
and  he  had  his  present  reward,  for  he  ended  as  Bishop 
of  Granada.  From  the  Latin  chair  in  the  University 
of  Salamanca,  Lucio  Marineo  lent  his  aid  to  the  good 
cause  ;  and,  in  Salamanca  likewise,  the  Portuguese, 
Arias  Barbosa,  won  repute  as  the  earliest  good  Penin- 
sular Hellenist.  Spanish  women  took  the  fever  of  foreign 
culture.  Lucia  de  Medrano  and  Juana  de  Contreras 
lectured  to  university  men  upon  the  Latin  poets  of  the 
Augustan  age.  So,  too,  Francisca  de  Nebrija  would 


1 30  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

serve  as  substitute  for  her  father,  ANTONIO  DE  NEBRIJA 
(1444-1522),  the  greatest  of  Spanish  humanists,  the 
author  of  the  Arte  de  la  Lengua  Castellana  and  of  a 
Spanish-Latin  dictionary,  both  printed  in  1492.  Nebrija 
touched  letters  at  almost  every  point,  touching  naught 
that  he  did  not  adorn  ;  he  expounded  his  principles  in 
the  new  University  of  Alcald  de  Henares,  founded  in 
1508  by  the  celebrated  Cardinal  Francisco  Jimenez  de 
Cisneros  (1436-1517).  Palencia  had  preceded  Nebrija 
by  two  years  with  the  earliest  Spanish-Latin  diction- 
ary ;  but  Nebrija's  drove  it  from  the  field,  and  won 
for  its  author  a  name  scarce  inferior  to  Casaubon's  or 
Scaliger's. 

The  first  Greek  text  of  the  New  Testament  ever  printed 
came  from  Alcala  de  Henares  in  1514.  In  1520  the  re- 
nowned Complutensian  Polyglot  followed  ;  the  Hebrew 
and  Chaldean  texts  being  supervised  by  converted  Jews 
like  Alfonso  de  Alcala,  Alfonso  de  Zamora,  and  Pablo 
Coronel ;  the  Greek  by  Nebrija,  Juan  de  Vergara, 
Demetrio  Ducas,  and  Hernan  Nunez,  "the  Greek  Com- 
mander." Versions  of  the  Latin  classics  were  in  all 
men's  hands.  Palencia  rendered  Plutarch  and  Josephus, 
Francisco  Vidal  de  Noya  translated  Horace,  Virgil's 
Eclogues  were  done  by  Encina,  Caesar's  Commentaries 
by  Diego  L6pez  de  Toledo,  Plautus  by  Francisco  L6pez 
Villalobos,  Juvenal  by  Jer6nimo  de  Villegas,  and  Apuleius' 
Golden  Ass  by  Diego  Lopez  de  Cartagena,  Archdeacon 
of  Seville.  Juan  de  Vergara  was  busied  on  the  text  of 
Aristotle,  while  his  brother,  Francisco  de  Vergara,  gave 
Spaniards  their  first  Greek  grammar  and  translated 
Heliodorus.  Nor  was  activity  restrained  to  dead  lan- 
guages :  the  Italian  teachers  saw  to  that.  Dante  was 
translated  by  Pedro  Fernandez  de  Villegas,  Archdeacon 


• 

LEON   HEBREO  131 

of  Burgos  ;  Petrarch's  Trionfi  by  Antonio  Obreg6n  and 
Alvar  Gomez ;  and  the  Decamerone  by  an  anonymous 
writer  of  high  merit. 

If  Italians  invaded  Spain,  Spaniards  were  no  less  ready 
to  settle  in  Italy.  Long  before,  Dante  had  met  with 
Catalans  and  had  branded  their  proverbial  stinginess  : — 
"I'avara  poverta  di  Catalogna."  A  little  later,  and 
Boccaccio  spurned  Castilians  as  so  many  wild  men  : 
"  semibarbari  et  efferati  homines."  Lorenzo  Valla,  chief 
of  the  Italian  scholars  at  Alfonso  V.'s  Neapolitan  court, 
denounced  the  King's  countrymen  as  illiterates  : — "  a 
studiis  hmnanitatis  abhorrentes''  Benedetto  Gareth  of 
Barcelona  (1450-?  1514)  plunged  into  the  new  current, 
forswore  his  native  tongue,  wrote  his  respectable  Rime 
in  Italian,  and  re-incarnated  himself  under  the  Italian 
form  of  Chariteo.  A  certain  Jusquin  Dascanio  is  re- 
presented by  a  song,  half-Latin,  half-Italian,  in  Asenjo 
Barbieri's  Cancionero  Musical  de  los  Siglos  xv.  y  xvi. 
(No.  68),  and  a  few  anonymous  pieces  in  the  same 
collection  are  written  wholly  in  Italian.  The  Valencian, 
Bertomeu  Gentil,  and  the  Castilian,  Tapia,  use  Italian  in 
the  Cancionero  General  of  1527,  the  former  succeeding 
so  far  that  one  of  his  eighteen  Italian  sonnets  has  been 
accepted  as  Tansillo's  by  all  Tansillo's  editors.  The 
case  of  the  Spanish  Jew,  Judas  Abarbanel,  whom  Chris- 
tians call  Le6n  Hebreo,  is  exceptional.  Undoubtedly 
his  famous  Dialoghi  di  amore,  that  curious  product  of 
neo  -  platonic  and  Semitic  mysticism  which  charmed 
Abarbanel's  contemporaries  no  less  than  it  charmed 
Cervantes,  reaches  us  in  Italian  (1535).  Yet,  since  it 
was  written  in  1502,  its  foreign  dress  is  the  chance  result 
of  the  writer's  expulsion  from  Spain  with  his  brethren 
in  1492.  It  is  unlikely  that  Judas  Abarbanel  should 


1 32  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

have  mastered  all  the  secrets  of  Italian  within  ten  years  : 
that  he  composed  in  Castilian,  the  language  most  familiar 
to  him,  is  overwhelmingly  probable. 

But  the  Italian  was  met  on  his  own  ground.  The 
Neapolitan  poet,  Luigi  Tansillo,  declares  himself  a 
Spaniard  to  the  core  : — "  Spagnuolo  cPaffezione"  And, 
later,  Panigarola  asserts  that  Milanese  fops,  on  the 
strength  of  a  short  tour  in  Spain,  would  pretend  to 
forget  their  own  speech,  and  would  deliver  themselves 
of  Spanish  words  and  tags  in  and  out  of  season.  Mean- 
while, Spanish  Popes,  like  Calixtus  III.  and  Alexander  VI., 
helped  to  bring  Spanish  into  fashion.  It  is  unlikely  that 
the  epical  Historia  Parthenopea  (1516)  of  the  Sevillan, 
Alonso  Hernandez,  found  many  readers  even  among  the 
admirers  of  the  Great  Captain,  Gonzalo  de  C6rdoba, 
whose  exploits  are  its  theme ;  but  it  merits  notice  as 
a  Spanish  book  issued  in  Rome,  and  as  a  poor  imitation 
of  Mena's  Trescientas,  with  faint  suggestions  of  an  Italian 
environment.  A  Spaniard,  whom  Encina  may  have  met 
upon  his  travels,  introduced  Italians  to  the  Spanish 
theatre.  This  was  KAKTOLOME  TORRES  NAHARRO,  a 
native  of  Torres,  near  Badajoz.  Our  sole  information 
concerning  him  comes  from  a  Letter  Prefatory  to  his 
works,  written  by  one  Barbier  of  Orleans.  The  dates  of 
his  birth  and  death  are  unknown,  and  no  proof  supports 
the  story  that  he  was  driven  from  Rome  because  of  his 
satires  on  the  Papal  court.  Neither  do  we  know  that  he 
died  in  extreme  poverty.  These  are  baseless  tales.  What 
is  certain  is  this  :  that  Torres  Naharro,  having  taken 
orders,  was  captured  by  Algerine  pirates,  was  ransomed, 
and  made  his  way  to  Rome  about  the  year  1513.  Further, 
we  know  that  he  lived  at  Naples  in  the  service  of  Fabrizio 
Colonna,  and  that  his  collected  plays  were  published  at 


TORRES  NAHARRO  133 

Naples  in  1517  with  the  title  of  Propaladia,  dedicated 
to  Francisco  Davalos,  the  Spanish  husband  of  Vittoria 
Colonna.  That  Torres  Naharro  was  a  favourite  with 
Leo  X.  rests  on  no  better  basis  than  the  fact  that  in  the 
Pope's  privilege  to  print  he  is  styled  dilectus  filius. 

His  friendly  witness,  Barbier,  informs  us  that,  though 
Torres  Naharro  was  quite  competent  to  write  his  plays 
in  Latin,  he  chose  Castilian  of  set  purpose  that  "he 
might  be  the  first  to  write  in  the  vulgar  tongue."  This 
phrase,  taken  by  itself,  implies  ignorance  of  Encina's 
work  ;  in  any  case,  Torres  Naharro  develops  his  drama 
on  a  larger  scale  than  that  of  his  predecessor.  His 
Prohemio  or  Preface  is  full  of  interesting  doctrine.  He 
divides  his  plays  into  five  acts,  because  Horace  wills  it 
so,  and  these  acts  he  calls  jornadas,  "  because  they  re- 
semble so  many  resting-points."  The  personages  should 
not  be  too  many  :  not  less  than  six,  and  not  more  than 
twelve.  If  the  writer  introduces  some  twenty  charac- 
ters in  his  Tinellaria,  he  excuses  himself  on  the  ground 
that  "  the  subject  needed  it."  He  further  apologises  for 
the  introduction  of  Italian  words  in  his  plays  :  a  conces- 
sion to  "  the  place  where,  and  the  persons  to  whom, 
the  plays  were  recited."  Lastly,  Torres  Naharro  divides 
dramas  into  two  broad  classes  :  first,  the  comedia  de 
noticia,  which  treats  of  events  really  seen  and  noted ; 
second,  the  comedia  de  fantasia,  which  deals  with  feigned 
things,  imaginary  incidents  that  seem  true,  and  might  be 
true,  though  in  fact  they  are  not  so. 

Of  the  comedia  de  fantasia  Torres  Naharro  is  the 
earliest  master.  He  adventures  on  the  allegorical  drama 
in  his  Trofea,  which  commemorates  the  exploits  of 
Manoel  of  Portugal  in  Africa  and  India,  and  brings 
Fame  and  Apollo  upon  the  stage.  The  chivalresque 


134  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

drama  is  represented  by  him  in  such  pieces  as  the 
Serafina,  the  Aquilana,  the  Himenea ;  while  he  examples 
the  play  of  manners  by  the  Jacinta  and  the  Soldadesca, 
Each  piece  begins  with  an  in  troy  to  or  prologue,  wherein 
indulgence  and  attention  are  requested  ;  then  follows 
a  concise  summary  of  the  plot ;  last,  the  action  opens. 
The  faults  of  Torres  Naharro's  theatre  are  patent  enough: 
his  tendency  to  turn  comedy  to  farce,  his  inclination  to 
extravagance,  his  want  of  tact  in  crowding  his  stage — as 
in  the  Tinellaria — with  half-a-dozen  characters  chattering 
in  half-a-dozen  different  languages  at  once. 

Setting  aside  these  primitive  humours,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  deny  that  Torres  Naharro  has  a  positive,  as 
well  as  an  historic  value.  His  versification,  always  in 
the  Castilian  octosyllabic  metre,  with  no  trespassing  on 
the  Italian  hendecasyllabic,  is  neat  and  polished,  and, 
though  far  from  splendid,  lacks  neither  sweetness  nor 
speed  ;  his  dialogue  is  pointed,  opportune,  dramatic  ; 
his  characters  are  observed  and  are  set  in  the  proper 
light.  His  verses  entitled  the  Lamentaciones  de  Amor  are 
in  the  old,  artificial  manner  ;  his  satirical  couplets  on  the 
clergy  are  vigorous  and  witty  attacks  on  the  general  life 
of  Rome  ;  his  devout  songs  are  neither  better  nor  worse 
than  those  of  his  contemporaries  ;  and  his  sonnets — two 
in  Italian,  one  in  a  mixture  of  Italian  and  Latin — are 
mere  curiosities  of  no  real  worth,  yet  they  testify  to  the 
writer's  uncommon  versatility.  Versatile  Torres  Naharro 
unquestionably  was,  and  his  gift  serves  him  in  the  plays 
for  which  he  is  remembered.  He  is  the  first_Srjaniard 
to  realise  his  personages,  to  create  character  on  the 
boardsj  the  first  to  build  a  plot,  to  maintain  an  interest 
of  action  by  variety  of  incident,  to  polish  an  intrigue,, 
to  concentrate  his  powers  within  manageable  limits,  to... 


GIL  VICENTE  135 

view  stage-effects  from  before  the  curtain.  In  a  word, 
Torres  Naharro  knew  the  stage,  its  possibilities,  and  its 
resources.  For  his  own  age  and  for  his  opportunities 
he  knew  it  even  too  well  ;  and  his  Himenea — the  theme 
of  which  is  the  love  of  Himeneo  for  Febea,  with  the 
interposition  of  Febea's  brother,  petulant  as  to  the 
"point  of  honour" — is  an  isolated  masterpiece,  unrivalled 
tilTthe  time  of_Lo_p_e  de_Veg_a..  The  accident  that  Torres 
Naharro's  Propaladia  was  printed  in  Italy ;  the  misfor- 
tune that  its  Spanish  reprints  were  tardy,  and  that  his 
plays  were  too  complicated  for  the  primitive  resources 
of  the  Spanish  stage :  these  delayed  the  development  of 
the  Spanish  theatre  by  close  on  a  century.  Yet  the  fact 
remains  :  to  find  a  match  for  the  Himenea  we  must  pass 
to  the  best  of  Lope's  pieces. 

Thus  the  Spaniard  in  Italy.  In  Portugal,  likewise,  he 
made  his  way.  GIL  VICENTE  (1470-1540),  the  Portuguese 
dramatist,  wrote  forty-two  pieces,  of  which  ten  are  wholly 
in  Castilian,  while  fifteen  are  in  a  mixed  jargon  of  Cas- 
tilian  and  Portuguese  which  the  author  himself  ridicules 
as  aravia  in  his  Auto  das  Fadas.  An  important  histori- 
cal fact  is  that  Vicente's  earliest  dramatic  attempt,  the 
Monologo  da  Visitaqdo,  is  in  Castilian,  and  that  it  was 
actually  played — the  first  lay  piece  ever  given  in  Portu- 
gal— on  June  8,  1502.  Its  simplicity  of  tone  and  elegance 
of  manner  are  reminiscent  of  Encina,  and  it  can  scarce 
be  doubted  that  Vicente's  imitation  is  deliberate.  Still 
more  obvious  is  the  following  of  Encina's  eclogues  in 
Vicente's  Auto  pastoril  Castelhano  and  the  Auto  dos  Reis 
Matgos,  where  the  legend  is  treated  with  Encina's  curious 
touch  of  devotion  and  modernity,  the  whole  closing  with 
a  song  in  which  all  join.  Once  again  Encina's  influence 

is  manifest  in  the  Auto  da  Sibilla  Cassandra,  wherein 
10 


I36  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Cassandra,  niece  of  Moses,  Abraham,  and  Isaiah,  is  wooed 
by  Solomon.  In  Amadis  de  Gaula  and  in  Dom  Duardos 
there  is  a  marked  advance  in  elaboration  and  finish ;  and 
in  the  Auto  da  F/  Vicente  proves  his  independence  by 
an  ingenuity  and  a  fancy  all  his  own.  Here  he  displays 
qualities  above  those  of  his  model,  and  treats  his  subject 
with  such  brilliancy  that,  a  century  and  a  half  later, 
Calder6n  condescended  to  borrow  from  the  Portuguese 
the  idea  of  his  auto  entitled  El  Lirio  y  la  Azucena.  Gil 
Vicente  is  technically  a  dramatist,  but  he  is  not  dra- 
matic as  Torres  Naharro  is  dramatic.  His  action  is  slight, 
his  treatment  timid  and  conventional,  and  he  is  more 
poetic  than  inventive  ;  still,  his  dramatic  songs  are  of 
singular  beauty,  conceived  in  a  tone  of  mystic  lyricism 
unapproached  by  those  who  went  before  him,  and  sur- 
passed by  few  who  followed.  That  Vicente  was  ever 
played  in  Spain  is  not  known ;  but  that  he  influenced 
both  Lope  de  Vega  and  Calder6n  is  as  sure  as  that  he 
himself  was  a  disciple  of  Encina. 

A  more  immediate  factor  in  the  evolution  of  Spanish 
letters  was  the  Catalan  Boscd,  whom  it  is  convenient  to 
call  by  his  Castilian  name,  JUAN  BoscAN  ALMOGAVER 
(?  1490-1542).  A  native  of  Barcelona,  Boscan  served 
as  a  soldier  in  Italy,  returned  to  Spain  in  1519,  and,  as 
we  know  from  Garcilaso's  Second  Eclogue,  was  tutor 
to  Fernando  Alvarez  de  Toledo,  whom  the  world 
knows  as  the  Duque  de  Alba.  Roseau's  earliest  verses 
are  all  in  the  old  manner ;  nor  does  he  venture  on 
the  Italian  hendecasyllabic  till  the  year  1526,  just 
before  resigning  his  guardianship  of  Alba.  His  con- 
version was  the  work  of  the  Venetian  ambassador, 
Andrea  Navagiero,  an  accomplished  courtier,  ill  repre- 
sented by  his  Viaggiofatto  in  Spagna.  Being  at  Granada 


BOSCAN  137 


in  the  year  1526,  Navagiero  met  Boscan,  who  has  left  us 
an  account  of  the  conversation  : — "Talking  of  wit  and 
letters,  especially  of  their  varieties  in  different  tongues, 
he  inquired  why  I  did  not  try  in  Castilian  the  sonnets 
and  verse-forms  favoured  by  distinguished  Italians.  He 
not  only  suggested  this,  but  pressed  me  urgently  to  the 
attempt.  Some  days  later,  I  made  for  home,  and,  be- 
cause of  the  length  and  loneliness  of  the  journey,  think- 
ing matters  over,  I  returned  to  what  Navagiero  had  said, 
and  thus  I  first  attempted  this  sort  of  verse ;  finding 
it  hard  at  the  outset,  since  it  is  very  intricate,  with  many 
peculiarities,  varying  greatly  from  ours.  Yet,  later,  I 
fancied  that  I  was  progressing  well,  perhaps  because  we 
all  love  our  own  essays  ;  hence  I  continued,  little  by 
little,  with  increasing  zeal."  This  passage  is  a  locus 
classicus.  Ticknor  justly  observes  that  no  single  foreigner 
ever  affected  a  national  literature  more  deeply  and  more 
instantly  than  Navagiero,  and  that  we  have  here  a  first- 
hand account,  probably  unique  in  literary  history,  of  the 
first  inception  of  a  revolution  by  the  earliest,  if  not  the 
most  conspicuous,  actor  in  it.  We  have  at  last  reached 
the  parting  of  the  ways,  and  Boscan  presents  himself  as 
a  guide  to  the  Promised  Land.  The  astonishing  thing 
is  that  Boscan,  a  Barcelonese  by  birth  and  residence, 
ignores  Auzi'as  March. 

There  were  many  Italianates  before  Boscan — as 
Francisco  Imperial  and  Santillana ;  but  their  hour  was 
not  propitious,  and  Boscan  is  with  justice  regarded  as 
the  leader  of  the  movement.  He  was  not  a  poet  of 
singular  gifts,  and  he  had  the  disadvantage  of  writing 
in  Castilian,  which  was  not  his  native  language ;  but 
Boscan  had  the  wit  to  see  that  Castilian  was  destined 
to  suoremacy,  and  he  mastered  it  for  his  purpose  with 


138  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

that  same  dogged  perseverance  which  led  him  to  under- 
take his  more  ambitious  attempt  unaided.  He  does  not, 
indeed,  appear  to  have  sought  for  disciples,  nor  were 
his  own  efforts  as  successful  as  he  believed  :  "perhaps 
because  we  all  love  our  own  essays."  His  Castilian 
prose  is  evidence  of  his  gift  of  style,  and  his  translation 
of  Castiglione's  Cortegiano  is  a  triumph  of  rendering  fit 
v '  to  take  its  place  beside  our  Thomas  Hoby's  version  of 
the  same  original.  But,  it  must  be  said  frankly,  that 
Boscan's  most  absolute  success  is  in  prose.  Herrera 
bitterly  taunts  him  with  decking  himself  in  the  precious 
robes  of  Petrarch,  and  with  remaining,  spite  of  all  that 
he  can  do,  "a  foreigner  in  his  language."  And  the 
charge  is  true.  In  verse  Boscan's  defects  grow  very 
visible:  his  hardness,  his  awkward  construction,  his  un- 
refined ear,  his  uncertain  touch  upon  his  instrument,  his 
boisterous  execution.  Still,  it  is  not  as  an  original 
genius  that  Boscan  finds  place  in  history,  but  rather  as 
an  initiator,  a  master-opportunist  who,  without  persua- 
sion, by  the  sheer  force  of  conviction  and  example,  led 
a  nation  to  abandon  the  ancient  ways,  and  to  admit 
the  potency  and  charm  of  exotic  forms.  That  in  itself 
constitutes  a  title,  if  not  to  immortality  at  least,  to 
remembrance. 

Boscan's  influence  manifested  itself  in  diverse  ways. 
His  friend,  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega,  sent  him  the  first 
edition  of  Castiglione's  Cortegiano,  printed  at  Venice  in 
1528.  This — "the  best  book  that  ever  was  written 
upon  good  breeding,"  according  to  Samuel  Johnson- 
was  triumphantly  translated  into  Castilian  by  Boscan  at 
Garcilaso's  prayer  ;  and,  though  Boscan  himself  held 
translation  to  be  a  thing  meet  for  "  men  of  small 
parts,"  his  rendering  is  an  almost  perfect  performance. 


BOSCAN  139 

Moreover,  it  was  the  single  work  published  by  him 
(1534),  for  his  poems  appeared  under  his  widow's  care. 
Once  more,  in  an  epistle  directed  to  Hurtado  de  Men- 
doza,  Boscan  re-echoes  Horace's  note  of  elegant  sim- 
plicity with  a  faithfulness  not  frequent  in  his  work ; 
and,  lastly,  it  is  known  that  he  did  into  Castilian  an 
Euripidean  play,  which,  though  licensed  for  the  press, 
was  never  printed.  Truly  it  seems  that  Boscan  was 
conscious  of  his  very  definite  limitations,  and  that  he 
felt  the  necessity  of  a  copy,  rather  than  a  direct  model. 
If  it  were  so,  this  would  indicate  a  power  of  conscious 
selection,  a  faculty  for  self-criticism  which  cannot  be 
traced  in  his  published  verses.  His  earlier  poems,  written 
in  Castilian  measures,  show  him  for  a  man  destitute 
of  guidance,  thrown  on  his  own  resources,  a  perfectly 
undistinguished  versifier  with  naught  to  sing  and  with 
no  dexterity  of  vocalisation.  Yet,  let  Boscan  betake 
himself  to  the  poets  of  the  Cinque  Cento,  and  he  flashes 
forth  another  being  :  the  dauntless  adventurer  sailing 
for  unknown  continents,  inspired  by  the  enthusiasm  of 
immediate  suggestion. 

His  Hero  y  Leandra  is  frankly  based  upon  Musaeus, 
and  it  is  characteristic  of  Boscan's  mode  that  he  expands 
Musaeus'  three  hundred  odd  hexameters  into  nigh  three 
thousand  hendecasyllabics.  Professor  Flamini  has  de- 
monstrated most  convincingly  that  Boscan  followed 
Tasso's  Favo/a,  but  he  comes  far  short  of  Tasso's  variety, 
distinction,  and  grace.  He  annexes  the  Italian  blank  verse 
—the  versi  sciolti — as  it  were  by  sheer  force,  but  he  never 
subdues  the  metre  to  his  will,  and  his  monotony  of 
accent  and  mechanical  cadence  grow  insufferable.  Not 
only  so  :  too  often  the  very  pretence  of  inspiration  dis- 
solves, and  the  writer  descends  upon  slothful  prose, 


140  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

sliced  into  lines  of  regulation  length,  honeycombed  with 
flat  colloquialisms.  Conspicuously  better  is  the  Octava 
Rima — an  allegory  embodying  the  Court  of  Love  and 
the  Court  of  Jealousy,  with  the  account  of  an  em- 
bassage  from  the  former  to  two  fair  Barcelonese  rebels. 
Of  this  performance  Thomas  Stanley  has  given  an 
English  version  (1652)  from  which  these  stanzas  are 
taken  : — 

"  In  the  bright  region  of  the  fertile  east 

Where  constant  calms  smooth  Aeav'n's  unclouded  brow, 
There  lives  an  easy  people,  vovJd  to  rest, 

Who  on  love  only  all  their  hours  bestow  : 
By  no  unwelcome  discontent  opprest, 

No  cares  save  those  that  from  this  passion  flow, 
Here  reigns,  here  ever  uncontrolled  did  reign; 
•     The  beauteous  Queen  sprung  from  the  foaming  main. 

Her  hand  the  sceptre  bears,  the  crown  her  head, 
Her  willing  vassals  here  their  tribute  pay  : 

Here  is  her  sacred  power  and  statutes  spread, 
Which  all  with  cheerful  forwardness  obey  : 

The  lover  by  affection  hither  led, 
Receives  relief,  sent  satisfied  away  : 

Here  all  enjoy,  to  give  their  last  flames  ease, 

The  pliant  figure  of  their  mistresses  .  .  . 

Love  every  structure  offers  to  the  sight, 
And  every  stone  his  soft  impression  wears. 

The  fountains,  moving  pity  and  delight, 

With  amorous  murmurs  drop  persuasive  tears. 

The  rivers  in  their  courses  love  invite, 
Love  is  the  only  sound  their  motion  bears. 

The  winds  in  whispers  soothe  these  kind  desires, 

And  fan  with  their  mild  breath  LovJs  glowing  fires" 

Ticknor  ranks  this  as  "the  most  agreeable  and  original 
of  Boscan's  works,"  and  as  to  the  correctness  of  the  first 


BOSCAN  141 

adjective  there  can  be  no  two  opinions.  But  concerning 
Boscan's  originality  there  is  much  to  say.  Passage  upon 
passage  in  the  Octavo.  Rima  is  merely  a  literal  rendering 
of  Bembo's  Stanze,  and  the  translation  begins  undis- 
guised at  the  opening  line.  Where  the  Italian  writes,  "  Ne 
I'odorato  e  lucido  Oriente"  the  Spaniard  follows  him  with 
the  candid  transcription,  "En  el  lumbroso y  fertil  Oriente"  ; 
and  the  imitation  is  further  tesselated  with  mosaics 
conveyed  from  Claudian,  from  Petrarch,  and  Ariosto. 
None  the  less  is  it  just  to  say  that  the  conveyance  is 
executed  with  considerable — almost  with  masterly — skill. 
The  borrowing  nowise  belittles  Boscan  ;  for  he  was  not 
— did  not  pose  as — a  great  spirit  with  an  original  voice. 
He  makes  no  claim  whatever,  he  seeks  for  no  applause — 
the  shy,  taciturn  experimentalist  who  published  never  a 
line  of  verse,  and  piped  for  his  own  delight.  Equipped 
with  the  ambition,  though  not  with  the  accomplishment, 
of  the  artist,  Boscan  has  a  prouder  place  than  he  ever 
dreamed  of,  since  he  is  confessedly  the  earliest  repre- 
sentative of  a  new  poetic  dynasty,  the  victorious  leader 
of  a  desperately  forlorn  hope.  That  title  is  his  laurel 
and  his  garland.  He  led  his  race  into  the  untrodden 
ways,  triumphing  without  effort  where  men  of  more 
strenuous  faculty  had  failed ;  and  his  results  have  suc- 
cessfully challenged  time,  inasmuch  as  there  has  been 
no  returning  from  his  example  during  nigh  four 
hundred  years.  Not  a  great  genius,  not  a  lordly 
versifier,  endowed  with  not  one  supreme  gift,  Boscan 
ranks  as  an  unique  instance  in  the  annals  of  literary 
adventure  bj  virtue  of  his  enduring  and  irrevocable 
victory. 

His  is  the  foremost  post  in  point  of  time.     In  point 
of  absolute  merit  he  is  easily  outshone  by  his  younger 


1  42  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

comrade,  GARCILASO  DE  LA  VEGA  (1503-36),  the 
bearer  of  a  name  renowned  in  Spanish  chronicle  and 
song.  Grandson  of  Perez  de  Guzman,  Garcilaso  entered 
the  Royal  Body-guard  in  his  eighteenth  year.  He 
quitted  him  like  the  man  he  was  in  crushing  domestic 
rebellion,  and,  despite  the  fact  that  his  brother,  Pedro, 
served  in  the  insurgent  ranks,  Garcilaso  grew  into  favour 
with  the  Emperor. 

At  Pavia,  where  Francis  lost  all  save  honour,  Gar- 
cilaso distinguished  himself  by  his  intrepidity.  For  a 
moment  he  fell  into  disgrace  because  of  his  connivance 
at  a  secret  marriage  between  his  cousin  and  one  of  the 
Empress'  Maids  of  Honour  :  interned  in  an  islet  on 
the  Danube,  —  Danubio,  rio  divino,  he  calls  it,  —  he  there 
composed  one  of  his  most  admired  pieces,  richly  charged 
with  exotic  colouring.  His  imprisonment  soon  ended, 
and,  with  intervals  of  service  before  Tunis,  and  with  spells 
of  embassies  between  Spain  and  Italy,  his  last  years  were 
mostly  spent  at  Naples  in  the  service  of  the  Spanish 
Viceroy,  Pedro  de  Toledo,  Marque's  de  Villafranca,  father 
of  Garcilaso's  friend,  the  Duque  de  Alba.  In  the  Pro- 
ven9al  campaign  the  Spanish  force  was  held  in  check  by 
a  handful  of  yeomen  gathered  in  the  fort  of  Muy,  between 
Draguignan  and  Fre"jus.  Muy  recalls  to  Spanish  hearts 
such  memories  as  Zutphen  brings  to  Englishmen.  In 
itself  the  engagement  was  a  mere  skirmish  :  for  Garci- 
laso it  was  a  great  and  picturesque  occasion.  The  ac- 
counts given  by  Navarrete  and  Garcfa  Cerezeda  vary  in 
detail,  but  their  general  drift  is  identical.  The  last  of  the 
Spanish  Caisars  named  his  personal  favourite,  the  most 
dashing  of  Spanish  soldiers  and  the  most  distinguished  of 
Spanish  poets,  to  command  the  storm  ing-party.  Doffing 
his  breastplate  and  his  helmet  that  he  might  be  seen 


GARCILASO  143 

by  all  beholders — by  the  Emperor  not  less  than  by  the 
army — Garcilaso  led  the  assault  in  person,  was  among 
the  first  to  climb  the  breach,  and  fell  mortally  wounded  in 
the  arms  of  Jer6nimo  de  Urrea,  the  future  translator  of 
Ariosto,  and  of  his  more  intimate  friend,  the  Marques  de 
Lombay,  whom  the  world  knows  best  as  St.  Francis 
Borgia.  He  was  buried  with  his  ancestors  in  his  own 
Toledo,  where,  as  even  the  grudging  Gongora  allows, 
every  stone  within  the  city  is  his  monument. 

His  illustrious  descent,  his  ostentatious  valour,  his 
splendid  presence,  his  seductive  charm,  his  untimely 
death  :  all  these,  joined  to  his  gift  of  song,  combine  to 
make  him  the  hero  of  a  legend  and  the  idol  of  a  nation. 
Like  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Garcilaso  personified  all  accom- 
plishments and  all  graces.  He  died  at  thirty-three  :  the 
fact  must  be  borne  in  mind  when  we  take  account  of  his 
life's  work  in  literature.  Yet  Europe  mourned  for  him, 
and  the  loyal  Boscan  proclaimed  his  debt  to  the  brilliant 
soldier-poet.  Pleased  as  the  Catalan  was  with  his  novel  /? 
experiments,  he  avows  he  would  not  have  persevered 
"  but  for  the  encouragement  of  Garcilaso,  whose  decision 
— not  merely  to  my  mind,  but  to  the  whole  world's — is  to 
be  taken  as  final.  By  praising  my  attempts,  by  showing 
the  surest  sign  of  approval  through  his  acceptance  of  my 
example,  he  led  me  to  dedicate  myself  wholly  to  the 
undertaking."  Boscan  and  Garcilaso  were  not  divided 
by  death.  The  former's  widow,  Ana  Giron  de  Rebolledo, 
gave  her  husband's  verses  to  the  press  in  1543  >  an(^» 
more  jealous  for  the  fame  of  her  husband's  friend  than 
were  any  of  his  own  household,  she  printed  Garcilaso's 
poems  in  the  Fourth  Book. 

Garcilaso  is  eminently  a  poet  of  refinement,  distinction, 
and  cultivation.   What  Boscan  half  knew,  Garcilaso  knew 


f-fwr    vu*s*r         Jr****  *~ 

144  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

to  perfection,  and  his  accomplishment  was  wider  as  well 
as  deeper.1  Living  his  last  years  in  Naples,  Garcilaso 
had  caught  the  right  Renaissance  spirit,  and  is  beyond 
all  question  the  most  Italianate  of  Spanish  poets  in  form 
and  substance.  He  was  not  merely  the  associate  of 
such  expatriated  countrymen  as  Juan  de  Valdes  :  he  was 
the  friend  of  Bembo  and  Tansillo,  the  first  of  whom 
calls  him  the  best  loved  and  the  most  welcome  of  all 
the  Spaniards  that  ever  came  to  Italy.  To  Tansillo,  Gar- 
cilaso was  attached  by  bonds  of  closest  intimacy,  and 
the  reciprocal  influence  of  the  one  upon  the  other  is 
manifest  in  the  works  of  both.  This  association  would 
seem  to  have  been  the  chief  part  of  Garcilaso's  literary 
training.  His  few  flights  in  the  old  Castilian  metres,  his 
songs  and  villancicos,  are  of  small  importance ;  his  finest 
efforts  are  cast  in  the  exotic  moulds.  It  is  scarcely 
an  exaggeration  to  say  that  fundamentally  he  is  a  Nea- 
politan poet. 

The  sum  of  his  production  is  slight :  the  inconsider- 
able villanctcos,  three  eclogues,  two  elegies,  an  epistle, 
five  highly  elaborated  songs,  and  thirty-eight  Petrarchan 
sonnets.  Small  as  is  his  work  in  bulk,  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  it  was  like  nothing  before  it  in  Castilian. 

1  Garcilaso's  forty-eight  Latin  stanzas,  written  after  the  Danubian  imprison- 
ment, are  sufficiently  unknown  to  justify  a  brief  quotation  here.  They  occur 
in  Antonius  Thylesius'  Opera  (Naples,  1762),  pp.  128-129:  Garcilassi  di 
Vega  Toletani  ad  Antonium  Thylcsium : — 

"  Uxore,  natis,  fratribus  et  solo 
Exul  relictis,  frigida  per  loca 
Musarum  alumnus,  barbarorum 
Ferre  superbiam,  et  insolenles 

Mores  coactusjam  didici,  et  invia 
Per  saxa  voce  in  geminantia 
Fletusque,  sub  rauco  querelas 
Murmure  Danubii  levare." 


GARCILASO  145 

Auzi'as  March,  no  doubt,  had  earlier  struck  a  similar 
note  in  Catalan,  and  Garcilaso,  who  seems  to  have 
read  everything,  imitates  his  predecessor's  harmonies  and 
cadences.  His  trick  of  reminiscence  is  remarkable. 
Thus,  his  first  eclogue  is  plainly  suggested  by  Tansillo  ; 
his  second  eclogue  is  little  more  than  a  rendering  in 
verse  of  picked  passages  from  the  Arcadia  of  Jacopo 
Sannazaro  ;  while  the  fifth  of  his  songs — La  Flor  de 
Gnido — is  a  most  masterly  transplantation  of  Bernardo 
Tasso's  structure  to  Castilian  soil.  And  almost  every 
page  is  touched  with  the  deliberate,  conscious  elegance  of 
a  student  in  the  school  of  Horace.  In  simple  execution 
Garcilaso  is  impeccable.  The  objection  most  commonly 
made  is  that  he  surrenders  his  personality,  and  converts 
himself  into  the  exquisite  echo  of  an  exhausted  pseudo- 
classic  convention.  And  the  charge  is  plausible. 

It  is  undeniably  true  that  Garcilaso's  distinction  lacks 
the  force  of  real  simplicity,  that  his  eternal  sweetness 
cloys,  and  that  the  thing  said  absorbs  him  less  than  the 
manner  of  saying  it.  He  would  have  met  the  criticism 
that  he  was  an  artificial  poet  by  pointing  out  that,  poetry 
being  an  art,  it  is  of  essence  artificial.  That  he  was  an 
imitative  artist  was  his  highest  glory :  by  imitating  foreign 
models  he  attained  his  measure  of  originality,  enriching 
Spain,  with  not  merely  a  number  of  technical  forms  but 
a  new  poetic  language.  Without  him  Boscan  must  have 
failed  in  his  emprise,  as  Santillana  failed  before  him. 
Besides  his  technical  perfection,  Garcilaso  owned  the 
poetic  temperament  —  a  temperament  too  effeminately 
delicate  for  the  vulgarities  of  life.  As  he  tells  us  in  his 
third  eclogue,  he  lived,  "  now  using  the  sword,  now  the 
pen  : " — 

"  Tomando  ora  la  espada,  ora  lapluma." 


I46  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

But  the  clank  of  the  sabre  is  never  heard  in  the  fiery 
soldier's  verse.  His  atmosphere  is  not  that  of  battle,  but 
is  rather  the  enchained  lia/e  of  an  Arcadia  which  never 
was  nor  ever  could  be  in  a  banal  world.  As  thus,  in 
Wiffen's  version : — 

"Here  ceased  the  youth  his  Doric  madrigal, 
And  sighing,  with  his  last  laments  let  fall 
A  shower  of  tears ;  the  solemn  mountains  round, 
Indulgent  of  his  sorrow,  tossed  the  sound 
Melodious  from  romantic  steep  to  steep, 
In  mild  responses  deep; 

Sweet  Echo,  startingjrom  her  couch  of  moss, 
Lengthened  the  dirge;  and  tenderest  Philomel, 
As  pierced  with  grief  and  pity  at  his  loss, 
Warbled  divine  reply,  nor  seemed  to  trill 
Less  than  Jove's  nectar  from  her  mournful  bill. 
What  Nemoroso  sang  in  sequel,  tell, 
Ye  sweet-voiced  Sirens  of  the  sacred  hill? 

This  is,  in  a  sense,  "  unnatural "  ;  but  if_we  jrgLJto. 
condemn  it  as  such,  we  must  even  reject  the  whole 
school  of  pastoral,  a  convention  of  which  the  six- 
teenth century  was  enamoured.  When  Garcilaso  intro- 
duced himself  as  Salicio,  and,  under  the  name  of 
Nemoroso,  presented  Boscan  (or,  as  Herrera  will  have 
it,  Antonio  de  Fonseca),  he  but  took  the  formula  as  he 
found  it,  and  translated  it  in  terms  of  genius.  He  was 
'-  consciously  returning  upon  nature  ;  not  upon  the  mate- 
rial facts  of  existence  as  if  is,  but  upon  a  figmentary 
nature  idealised  into  a  languid  and  ethereal  beauty.  He 
sought  for  effects  of  suavest  harmony,  embodying  in 
his  song  a  mystic  neo-platonism,  the  morbidezza  of  "  love 
in  the  abstract,"  set  off  by  grace  and  sensibility  and 
elfin  music.  It  may  be  permissible  for  the  detached 
critic  to  appreciate  Garcilaso  at  something  less  than  his 


GARCILASO  147 

secular  renown,  but  this  superior  attitude  were  unlawful 
and  inexpedient  for  an  historical  reviewer. 

Time  and  unanimity  settle  many  questions  :  and,  after 
all,  on  a  matter  concerning  Castilian  poetry,  the  unbroken 
verdict  of  the  Castilian-speaking  race  must  be  accepted 
as  weighty,  if  not  final.  Garcilaso  may  not  be  a  supreme 
singer  :  he  is  at  least  one  of  the  gi-eaieJ  of  the  Spanish 
poets.  Choosing  to  reproduce  the  almost  inimitable 
cadences  of  the  Virgilian  eclogue,  he  achieves  his  end 
with  a  dexterity  that  approaches  genius.  Others  before 
him  had  hit  upon  what  seemed  "  pretty  i'  the  Mantuan  "  : 
he  alone  suggests  the  secret  of  Virgil's  brooding,  incom- 
municable, and  melancholy  charm.  What  Boscan  saw 
to  be  possible,  what  he  attempted  with  more  good-will 
than  fortune,  that  Garcilaso  did  with  an  instant  and 
peremptory  triumph.  He  naturalised  the  sonnet,  he 
enlarged  the  framework  of  the  song,  he  invented  the 
ode,  he  so  bravely  arranged  his  lines  of  seven  and  eleven 
syllables  that  the  fascination  of  his  harmonies  has  led 
historians  to  forget  Bernardo  Tasso's  priority  in  discover- 
ing the  resources  of  the  lira.  In  rare,  unwary  moments, 
he  lets  fall  an  Italian  or  French  idiorn^  nor  is  he  always 
free  from  the  pedantry  of  his  time  ;  but  absolute  perfec- 
tion is  jiot  of  this  world,  and  is  least  to  be  asked  of  one 
who,  writing  in  moments  stolen  from  the  rough  life  of 
camps,  died  at  thirty-three,  full  of  immense  promise  and 
immense  possibilities.  To  speculate  upon  what  Garcilaso 
might  have  become  is  vanity.  As  it  is,  he  survives  as 
the  Prince  of  Italianates.  the  acknowledged  master  of 
the  Cinque  Cento  form.  Cervantes  and  Lope  de  Vega, 
agreed  upon  nothing  else,  are  at  one  in  holding  him  for 
the  first  of  Castilian  poets.  With  slight  reservations, 
their  judgment  has  been  sustained,  and  even  to-day  the 


. 


148  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

sweet-voiced,  amatorious  paladin  leaves  an  abiding  im- 
press upon  the  character  of  his  national  literature. 

An  early  sectary  of  the  school  is  discovered  in  the 
person  of  the  Portuguese  poet,  FRANCISCO  DE  SA  DE 
MIRANDA  (1495-1558),  who  so  frequently  forsakes  his 
native  tongue  that  of  189  pieces  included  in  Mine.  Caro- 
lina Michaelis  de  Vasconcellos'  edition,  seventy-four  are 
in  Castilian.  S3.  de  Miranda's  early  poems  written  before 
1532 — the  Fdbula  de  Mondego,  the  Can-do  d  Virgeni,  and 
the  eclogue  entitled  Aleixo — are  in  the  old  manner.  His 
later  works,  such  as  Nemoroso,  with  innumerable  sonnets 
and  the  three  elegies  composed  between  1552  and  1555, 
are  all  undisguised  imitations  of  Boscan  and  Garcilaso,  for 
whom  the  writer  professes  a  rapturous  enthusiasm.  Sa 
de  Miranda  ranks  among  the  six  most  celebrated  Portu- 
guese poets;  and,  stranger  though  he  be,  even  in  Castilian 
literature  he  distinguishes  himself  by  his  correctness  of 
form,  by  his  sincerity  of  sentiment,  and  by  a  genuine 
love  of  natural  beauty  very  far  removed  from  the  falsetto 
admiration  too  current  among  his  contemporaries. 

The  soldier,  GUTIERRE  DE  CETIXA  (1520-60)  is  an- 
other partisan  of  the  Italian  school.  Serving  in  Italy, 
he  pursued  his  studies  to  the  best  advantage,  and  won 
friendship  and  aid  from  literary  magnates  like  the  Prince 
of  Ascoli,  and  Diego  Hurtado  de  Mendoza ;  but  sol- 
diering was  little  to  his  taste,  and,  after  a  campaign  in 
Germany,  Cetina  retired  to  his  native  Seville,  whence  he 
passed  to  Mexico  about  the  year  1550.  He  is  known  to 
have  written  in  the  dramatic  form,  but  no  specimen  of 
his  drama  survives,  unless  it  be  sepultured  in  some  ob- 
scure Central  American  library.  Cetina  is  a  copious 
sonneteer  who  manages  his  rhyme-sequences  with  more 
variety  than  his  predecessors,  and  his  songs  and  madri- 


CETINA:    ACUftA  149 

gals  are  excellent  specimens  of  finished  workmanship. 
His  general  theme  is  Arcadian  love  —  the  beauty  of 
Aman'ilida,  the  piteous  passion  of  the  shepherd  Silvio, 
the  grief  of  the  nymph  Flora  for  Menalca.  His  treat- 
ment is  always  ingenious,  his  frugality  in  the  matter  of 
adjectives  is  edifying,  though  it  scandalised  the  exuberant 
Herrera,  who,  as  a  true  Andalucian,  esteems  emphasis 
and  epithet  and  metaphor  as  the  three  things  needful. 
Cetina's  sobriety  is  paid  for  by  a  certain  preciosity  of 
utterance  near  akin  to  weakness  ;  but  he  excels  in  the 
sonnet  form,  which  he  handles  with  a  mastery  superior 
to  Garcilaso's  own,  and  he  adds  a  touch  of  humour  un- 
common in  the  mannered  school  that  he  adorns.  . 

FERNANDO  DE  ACUNA  (?  1500-80)  comes  into  notice 
as  the  translator  of  Olivier  de  la  Mar6he's  popular 
allegorical  poem,  the  Chevalier  De'lib/re,  a  favourite  with 
Carlos  Quinto.  The  Emperor  is  said  to  have  amused 
himself  by  translating  the  French  poem  into  Spanish 
prose,  and  to  have  commissioned  Acuna  to  a  poetic 
version.  A  courtier  like  Van  Male  gives  us  to  under- 
stand that  some  part  of  Acufla's  Caballero  determinado  is 
based  upon  the  Emperor's  prose  rendering,  and  the 
insinuation  is  that  Acuna  and  his  master  should  share 
the  praise  of  the  former's  exploit.  This  pleasant  tale 
is  scarce  plausible,  for  we  know  that  the  Caesar  never 
mastered  colloquial  Castilian,  and  that  he  should  shine 
in  its  literary  exercise  is  almost  incredible.  Be  that  as 
it  may,  Acufla's  Caballero  determinado,  a  fine  example 
of  the  old  quintillas,  met  with  wide  and  instant  appre- 
ciation ;  yet  he  never  sought  to  follow  up  his  triumph 
in  the  same  kind.  The  new  influence  was  irresist- 
ible, and  Acuna  succumbed  to  it,  imitating  the  lira  of 
Garcilaso  to  the  point  of  parody,  singing  as  "  Damon  in 


ISO  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

absence,"  practising  the  pastoral,  aspiring  to  Homer's 
dignity  in  his  blank  verses  entitled  the  Contienda  de 
Ayax  Telamonio  y  de  Ulises.  Three  Castilian  cantos  of 
Boiardo's  Orlando  Innamorato  won  applause  in  Italy ; 
but  Acufla's  best  achievements  are  his  sonnets,  which 
are  almost  always  admirable.  One  of  them  contains  a 
line  as  often  quoted  as  any  other  in  all  Castilian  verse  :— 

"  Un  Monarca,  un  Imperio^ y  una  Espada" 

"One  Monarch,  one  Empire,  and  one  Sword."  And 
this  pious  aspiration  after  unity  had  perhaps  been  ful- 
filled if  Spain  had  abounded  with  such  prudent  and 
accomplished  figures  as  Fernando  de  Acufia. 

A  more  powerful  and  splendid  personality  is  that  of 
the  illustrious  DIEGO  HURTADO  DE  MENDOZA  (1503- 
J/  I575)>  one  °f  tne  greatest  figures  in  the  history  of 
Spanish^  politics  and  letters.  Educated  for  the  Church 
at  the  University  of  Salamanca,  Mendoza  preferred  the 
career  of  arms,  and  found  his  opportunity  at  Pavia  and 
in  the  Italian  wars.  Before  he  was  twenty-nine  he  was 
named  Ambassador  to  the  Venetian  Republic,  became 
the  patron  of  the  Aldine  Press,  and  studied  the  classics 
with  all  the  ardour  of  his  temperament.  One  of  the 
few  Spaniards  learned  in  Arabic,  Mendoza  was  a  dis- 
tinguished collector :  he  ransacked  the  monastery  of 
Mount  Athos  for  Greek  manuscripts,  secured  others  from 
Sultan  Suliman  the  Magnificent,  and  had  almost  all 
Bessarion's  Greek  collection  transcribed  for  his  own 
library,  now  housed  in  the  Escorial.  The  first  complete 
edition  of  Josephus  was  printed  from  Mendoza's  copies. 
He  represented  the  Emperor  at  the  Council  of  Trent, 
and  saw  to  it  that  Cardinals  and  Archbishops  did  what 
Spain  expected  of  them.  In  1547  he  was  appointed 


MENDOZA:    CASTILLEJO  151 

Plenipotentiary  to  Rome,  where  he  treated  Pope  Julius: 
III.  as  cavalierly  as  his  Holiness  was  accustomed  to  treat 
his  own  curates.  In  1554  Mendoza  returned  to  Spain, 
and  the  accession  of  Felipe  II.  in  1556  brought  his  public 
career  to  a  close.  He  is  alleged  to  have  been  Ambassador 
to  England  ;  and  one  would  fain  the  report  were  true. 

His  wit  and  picaresque  malice  are  well  shown  in  his 
old-fashioned  redondillaSj  which  delighted  so  good  a 
judge  as  Lope  de  Vega,  and  his  real  strength  lay  in  his 
management  of  these  forms.  But  his  long  Italian  resi- 
dence and  his  sleepless  intellectual  curiosity  ensured  his 
experimenting  in  the  high  Roman  manner.  Tibullus, 
Horace,  Ovid,  Virgil,  Homer,  Pindar,  Anacreon :  all 
these  are  forced  into  Mendoza's  service,  as  in  his  epistles 
and  his  Fdbula  de  Adonis,  Hipomenes  y  Atalanta.  It 
cannot  be  said  that  he  is  at  his  best  in  these  pseudo- 
classical  performances,  and  he  dares  to  eke  out  his 
hendecasyllabics  by  using  a  final  palabra  aguda ;  but 
the  extreme  brilliancy  of  the  humour  carries  off  all 
technical  defects  in  the  burlesque  section  of  his  poems, 
which  are  of  the  loosest  gaiety,  most  curious  in  a  retired 
proconsul.  Yet,  if  Mendoza,  who  excelled  in  the  old, 
felt  compelled  to  pen  his  forty  odd  sonnets  in  the  new 
style,  how  strong  must  have  been  its  charm !  Whatever 
his  formal  defects,  Mendoza's  authority  was  decisive  in 
the  contest  between  the  native  and  the  foreign  types  of 
verse :  he  helped  to  secure  the  latter's  definitive  triumph. 

The  greatest  rebel  against  the  invasion  was  CRISTOBAL 
DE  CASTILLEJO  (?  1494-1556),  who  passed  thirty  years ^ 
abroad  in  the  service  of  Ferdinand,  King  of  Bohemia. 
Mush,  of  Jiis  Jife  was  actually  spent  in  Italy,  but  he 
kept  his  national  spirit  almost  absolutely  free  from  the 
foreign  influence.  If  he  compromises  at  all,  the  furthest 


152  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

he  can  go  is  in  adopting  the  mythological  machinery 
favoured  by  all  contemporaries,  and  even  for  this  he 
could  plead  respectable  Castilian  precedent ;  _but  in 
the  matter  of  form,  Castillejo  is  cruelly  intransigent. 
Boscan  is  his  especial  butt. 

"  El  mismo  confesarA 
Que  no  sabe  donde  vet " — 

"He  himself  will  confess  that  he  knows  not  whither  he 
goes."  That,  indeed,  appears  to  have  been  Castillejo's 
fixed  idea  on  the  subject,  and  he  expends  an  infinite  deal 
of  sarcasm  and  ridicule  upon  the  apostates  who,  as  he 
thinks,  hide  their  poverty  of  thought  in  tawdry  motley. 
His  own  subjects  are  perfectly  fitted  to  treatment  in  the 
villancico  form,  and  when  he  is  not  simply  improper — as 
in  El  Sermdn  de  los  Sermones — his  verses  are  remarkable 
for  their  sprightly  grace  and  bitter-sweet  wit,  which  can, 
at  need,  turn  to  rancorous  invective  or  to  devotional 
demureness.  Had  he  lived  in  Spain,  it  is  probable  that 
Castillejo's  mordant  ridicule  might  have  delayed  the 
Italian  supremacy.  As  it  was,  his  flouts  and  jibes  arrived 
too  late,  and  the  old  patriot  died,  as  he  had  lived,  a  bril- 
liant, impenitent,  futile  Tory. 

In  one  of  his  sonnets,  conceived  in  the  most  mis- 
chievous spirit  of  travesty,  Castillejo  singles  out  for 
reprobation  a  poet  named  Luis  de  Haro,  as  one  of  the 
Italian  agitators.  Unluckily  Haro's  verses  have  prac- 
tically disappeared  from  the  earth,  and  the  few  speci- 
mens preserved  in  Naj  era's  Cancionero  are  banal  exercises 
in  the  old  Castilian  manner.  A  practitioner  more  after 
p  Castillejo's  heart  was  the  ingenious  Antonio  de  Villegas 

(fl.  1551),  whose  Inventario,  apart  from  tedious  para- 
phrases of  the  tale  of  Pyramus  and  Thisbe  in  the  style 


VILLEGAS:    SILVESTRE  153 

of  Bottom  the  Weaver,  contains  many  excellent  society- 
verses,  touched  with  conceits  of  extreme  sublety,  and 
a  few  more  serious  efforts  in  the  form  of  d/cimas,  not 
without  a  grave  urbanity  and  a  penetration  of  their  own. 
Francisco  de  Castilla,  a  contemporary  of  Villegas,  vies 
with  him  in  essaying  the  hopeless  task  of  bringing  the 
old  rhythms  into  new  repute  ;  but  his  Teorica  de  virtudes, 
dignified  and  elevated  in  style  and  thought,  had  merely 
a  momentary  vogue,  and  is  now  unjustly  considered  a 
mere  bibliographical  curiosity. 

A  student  in  both  schools  was  the  Portuguese  GRE- 
GORIO  SILVESTRE  (1520-70),  choirmaster  and  organist 
in  the  Cathedral  of  Granada,  who,  beginning  with  a  boy's 
admiration  for  Garci  Sanchez  and  Torres  Naharro,  prac- 
tised the  redondilla  with  such  success  as  to  be  esteemed 
an  expert  in  the  art.  A  certain  Pedro  de  Caceres  y  Espi- 
nosa,  in  a  Discurso  prefixed  to  Silvestre's  poems  (1582), 
tells  us  that  his  author  "imitated  Crist6bal  de  Castillejo, 
in  speaking  ill  of  the  Italian  arrangements,"  and  that  he 
cultivated  the  novelties  for  the  practical  reason  that  they 
were  popular.  It  is  certain  that  Silvestre  is  as  attractive 
in  the  new  as  in  the  old  kind,  that  his  elegance  never 
obscures  his  simplicity,  that  he  shows  a  rare  sense  of 
ordered  outline,  an  exceptional  finish  in  the  technical 
details  of  both  manners.  His  conversion  is  the  last  that 
need  be  recorded  here.  The  villancico  still  found  its 
supporters  among  men  of  letters,  and,  as  late  as  the 
seventeenth  century,  both  Cervantes  and  Lope  de  Vega 
profess  a  platonic  attachment  to  it  and  kindred  metres  ; 
but  the  public  mind  was  set  against  a  revival,  and  Cer- 
vantes and  Lope  were  forced  to  abandon  any  idea  (if, 
indeed,  they  ever  entertained  it)  of  breathing  life  into 
these  dead  bones. 


154  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

Didactic  prose  was  practised,  according  to  the  old  tra- 
dition, by  Juan  L6pez  de  Vivero  Palacios  Rubios,  who 
published  in  1524  his  Tratado  del  esfuerzo  btflico  heroico,  a 
pseudo-philosophic  inquiry  into  the  origin  and  nature 
of  martial  valour,  written  in  a  clear  and  forcible  style. 
Francisco  L6pez  de  Villalobos  (1473-1549),  a  Jewish 
convert  attached  to  the  royal  household  as  physician, 
began  by  translating  Pliny's  Amphitruo  in  such  fashion 
as  to  bring  down  on  him  the  thunders  of  Herndn 
Nuftez.  Villalobos  works  the  didactic  vein  in  his 
rhymed  Sumario  de  Medicina  which  Ticknor  ignores, 
though  he  mentions  its  late  derivatives,  the  Trescientas 
preguntas  of  Alonso  L6pez  de  Corelas  (1546)  and  the 
Cuatrocientas  respuestas  of  Luis  de  Escobar  (1552).  But 
the  witty  physician's  most  praiseworthy  performance  is 
his  Tratado  de  las  tres  Grandes — namely,  talkativeness, 
obstinacy,  and  laughter — where  his  familiar  humour,  his 
frolic,  fantasy,  and  perverse  acuteness  far  outshine  the 
sham  philosophy  and  the  magisterial  intention  of  his 
other  work.  A  graver  talent  is  that  of  Fernando  Perez 
de  Oliva  (1492-1530),  once  lecturer  in  the  University  of 
Paris,  and,  later,  Rector  of  Salamanca,  who  boasts  of 
having  travelled  three  thousand  leagues  in  pursuit  of 
culture.  His  Didlogo  de  la  Dignidad del  H ombre,  written 
to  show  that  Castilian  is  as  good  a  vehicle  as  the  more 
fashionable  Latin  for  the  discussion  of  transcendental 
matters,  is  an  excellent  example  of  cold,  stately,  Cice- 
ronian prose,  and  the  continuation  by  his  friend,  Fran- 
cisco Cervantes  de  Salazar,  is  worthy  of  the  beginning ; 
but  the  hold  of  ecclesiastical  Latin  was  too  fast  to  be 
loosed  at  a  first  attempt. 

Oliva's  reputation  is  strictly  Spanish  :  not  so  that 
of  Carlos  Quinto's  official  chronicler,  ANTONIO  DE 


GUEVARA  155 

GUEVARA  (d.  1545),  a  Franciscan  monk  who  held  the 
bishopric  of  Mondonedo.  His  Reloj  de  Principes  (Dial 
of  Princes),  a  didactic  novel  with  Marcus  Aurelius  for 
its  hero,  was  originally  composed  to  encourage  his  own 
patron  to  imitate  the  virtues  of  the  wisest  ancient.  Un- 
luckily, however,  Guevara  passed  his  book  off  as  authentic 
history,  alleging  it  to  be  a  translation  of  a  non-existent 
manuscript  in  the  Florentine  collection.  This  brought 
him  into  trouble  with  antagonists  as  varied  as  the  court- 
fool,  Francesillo  de  Zuftiga,  and  a  Sorian  professor,  the 
Bachelor  Pedro  de  Rhua,  whose  Cartas  censorias  un- 
masked the  imposture  with  malignant  astuteness.  But 
this  critical  faculty  was  confined  to  the  Peninsula, 
and  North's  English  translation,  dedicated  to  Mary 
Tudor,  popularised  Guevara's  name  in  England,  where 
he  is  believed  by  some  authorities  to  have  exercised 
considerable  influence  on  the  style  of  English  prose. 
This,  however,  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  that  most 
difficult  question.  An  instance  of  Guevara's  better 
manner  is  offered  by  his  D/cada  de  los  CSsares,  though 
even  here  he  interpolates  his  own  unscrupulous  inven- 
tions and  embellishments,  as  he  also  does  in  his  Familiar 
Epistles,  Englished  by  Edward  Hellowes,  Groom  of  the 
Leash,  from  whose  version  an  illustration  may  be  bor- 
rowed:— "The  property  of  love  is  to  turn  the  rough  into 
plain,  the  cruel  to  gentle,  the  bitter  to  sweet,  the  un- 
savoury to  pleasant,  the  angry  to  quiet,  the  malicious 
to  simple,  the  gross  to  advised,  and  also  the  heavy  to 
light.  He  that  loveth,  neither  can  he  murmur  of  him  that 
doth  anger  him  :  neither  deny  that  they  ask  him  :  neither 
resist  when  they  take  from  him :  neither  answer  when 
they  reprove  him  :  neither  revenge  if  they  shame  him  : 
neither  yet  will  he  be  gone  when  they  send  him  away." 


156  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

These  pompous  commonplaces  abound  in  the  Familiar 
Epistles,  which,  though  still  the  most  readable  of  Guevara's 
performances,  are  tedious  in  their  elaborate  accumula- 
tion of  saws  and  instances,  unimpressively  collected  from 
the  four  quarters  of  the  earth.  But  the  rhetorical  letters 
went  the  round  of  the  world,  were  translated  times  out 
of  number,  and  were  commonly  called  "The  Golden 
Letters,"  to  denote  their  unique  worth. 

More  serious  and  less  attractive  historians  are  Pedro 
Mexia  (1496-1552),  whose  Historia  Imperial  y  Cesdrea  is 
a  careful  compilation  of  biographies  of  Roman  rules 
from  Caesar  to  Maximilian,  and  Floriin  de  Ocampo 
(1499-1555),  canon  of  Zamora,  and  an  official  chronicler, 
who,  taking  the  Deluge  as  his  starting-point,  naturally 
enough  fails  to  bring  his  dry-as-dust  annals  later  than 
Roman  times,  and  endeavours  to  follow  the  critical 
canons  of  his  time  with  better  intention  than  perform- 
ance. The  Comentarios  de  la  Guerra  en  Alemania  of 
Luis  de  Avila  y  Ziifiiga  are  valuable  as  containing  the 
evidence  of  an  acute,  direct  observer  of  events  ;  but 
Avila's  exaggerated  esteem  for  his  master  causes  him  to 
convert  his  history  into  an  elaborate  apology.  Carlos 
Quinto's  own  dry  criticism  of  the  book  is  final : — "Alex- 
ander's achievements  surpassed  mine — but  he  was  less 
lucky  in  his  chronicler."  The  conquest  of  America 
begot  a  crowd  of  histories,  of  which  but  few  need  be 
named  here.  Gonzalez  Fernandez  de  Oviedo  y  Valdes 
(1478-1557),  once  secretary  to  the  Great  Captain,  gives  an 
official  picture  of  the  New  World  in  his  Historia  general 
y  natural  de  Indtas,  and  a  similar  study  from  an  opposed 
and  higher  point  of  view  is  to  be  found  in  the  work  of 
Bartolome"  de  las  Casas,  Bishop  of  Chiapa  (1474-1566), 
whose  passionate  eloquence  on  behalf  of  the  American 


CORTES:    BERNAL  DIAZ  157 

Indians  is  displayed  in  his  Brevisima  relation  de  la  de- 
struction de  Indias  (1552)  ;  but  here  again  history  declines 
into  polemics,  the  offices  of  judge  and  advocate  over- 
lapping. The'  famous  HERNAN  CORTES  (1485-1554),  El 
Conquistador,  was  a  man  of  action  ;  but  his  official 
reports  on  Mexico  and  its  affairs  are  drawn  up  with 
exceeding  skill,  and  in  energy  of  phrase  and  luminous 
concision  may  stand  as  models  in  their  kind.  Cortes 
found  his  panegyrist  in  his  chaplain,  Francisco  Lopez 
de  G6mara  (1519-60),  whose  interesting  Conquista  de 
Mejico  is  an  uncritical  eulogy  on  his  chief,  .whom  he 
extols  at  the  expense  of  his  brother  adventurers.  The 
antidote  was  supplied  by  BERNAL  DIAZ  DEL  CASTILLO 
(fl.  1568),  whose  Historia  verdadera  de  la  conquista  de  la 
Nueva  Esparta  is  a  first-class  example  of  military  indig- 
nation. "Here  the  chronicler  G6mara  in  his  history 
says  just  the  opposite  of  what  really  happened.  Whoso 
reads  him  will  see  that  he  writes  well,  and  that,  with 
proper  information,  he  could  have  stated  his  facts 
correctly :  as  it  is,  they  are  all  lies."  The  manifest 
honesty  and  simplicity  of  the  old  soldier,  who  shared  in 
one  hundred  and  nineteen  engagements  and  could  not 
sleep  unless  in  armour,  are  extremely  winning ;  his 
prolix  ingenuousness  has  been  admirably  rendered  in 
our  day  by  a  descendant  of  the  Conquistadores,  M.  Jose 
Maria  Heredia,  whose  French  version  is  a  triumph  of 
translation.  V*  A 

Incredible  tales  from  the  Western  Indies  stimulated 
the  popular  appetite  for  miracles  in  terms  of  fiction. 
Paez  de  Ribera  added  a  sixth  book  to  Amadis,  under  the 
title  of  Florisando  (1510);  Feliciano  de  Silva  wrote  a 
seventh,  ninth,  tenth,  and  eleventh  —  Lisuarte  (1510), 
Amadis  de  Gretia  (1530),  Florisel  de  Niquea  (1532),  and 


158  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Rogcl  de  Grecia;  and  he  would  certainly  have  supplied 
the  eighth  book  had  he  not  been  anticipated  by  Juan 
Diaz  with  a  second  Lisuarte.  Parallel  with  Amadis  ran 
•the  series  of  Palmerin  de  Oliva  (1511),  which  tradition 
ascribes  to  an  anonymous  lady  of  Augustobriga,  but 
which  may  just  as  well  be  the  work  of  Francisco  Vazquez 
de  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  as  it  is  said  to  be  in  its  first  descend- 
ant Primaledn  (1512).  Polindo  (1526)  continues  the  tale, 
and  an  unknown  author  pursues  it  in  the  Cronica  del 
muy  valiente  Platir  (1533),  while  Palmerin  de  Inglaterra 
(1547-48)  closes  the  cycle.  Curious  readers  may  study 
this  last  in  the  English  version  of  Anthony  Munday 
(1616),  who  commends  it  as  an  excellent  and  stately 
history,  "wherein  gentlemen  may  find  choice  of  sweet 
inventions,  and  gentlewomen  be  satisfied  in  courtly  ex- 
pectations." These  are  but  a  few  of  the  extravagances  of 
the  press,  and  the  madness  spread  so  wide  that  Carlos 
Quinto,  admirer  as  he  was  of  Don  Belianis  de  Grecia,  was 
forced  to  protect  the  New  World  against  invasion  by 
books  of  this  class.  Scarcely  less  numerous  are  the 
continuations  of  the  Celestina,  due  to  the  indefatigable 
Feliciano  de  Silva,  to  Caspar  G6mez  de  Toledo,  to 
Sancho  Mufloz,  and  others. 

A  new  species  begins  with  the  first  picaroon  novel, 
Lazarillo  de  Tonnes y  long  ascribed  to  Diego  Hurtado  de 
Mendoza,  an  attribution  now  commonly  rejected  on  the 
authority  of  that  distinguished  Spanish  scholar,  M.  Alfred 
Morel-Fatio.  There  is  something  to  be  said  in  favour 
of  Mendoza's  claim  which  may  not  be  said  for  lack  of 
space.  As  to  Lazarillo  de  Tormes,  authorship,  date  and 
place  of  publication  are  all  uncertain :  the  three  earliest 
editions  known  appeared  at  Antwerp,  Burgos,  and  Alcala 
de  Henares  in  1554.  It  is  the  autobiography  of  Lazaro, 


THE  PICARESQUE  NOVEL  159 

son  of  the  miller,  Tome  Gonzalez,  and  the  trull,  Antonia 
Perez.  He  describes  his  adventures  as  leader  of  a  blind 
man,  as  servant  to  a  miserly  priest,  to  a  starving  gentle- 
man, to  a  beggar-monk,  to  a  vendor  of  indulgences,  to  a 
signboard  painter,  to  an  alguazil,  ending  his  career  in  a 
Government  post — un  oficio  real — as  town-crier  of  Toledo. 
There  we  leave  him  "  at  the  height  of  all  good  fortune." 
Lazaro's  experience  with  the  hungry  hidalgo  may  be 
quoted  from  the  admirable  archaic  rendering  by  David 
Rowland,  of  Anglesea  : — 

"  It  pleased  God  to  accomplish  my  desire  and  his 
together,  for  when  as  I  had  begun  my  meat,  as  he 
walked,  he  came  near  to  me,  saying  :  '  Lazaro,  I  pro- 
mise thee  thou  hast  the  best  grace  in  eating  that  ever 
I  did  see  any  man  have  ;  for  there  is  no  man  that  seest 
thee  eat,  but  seeing  thee  feed,  shall  have  appetite,  although 
they  be  not  a-hungered.'  Then  would  I  say  to  myself, 
'  The  hunger  which  thou  sustainest  causeth  thee  to  think 
mine  so  beautiful.'  Then  I  trusted  I  might  help  him, 
seeing  that  he  had  so  helped  himself,  and  had  opened 
me  the  way  thereto.  Wherefore  I  said  unto  him,  '  Sir, 
the  good  tools  make  the  workmen  good :  this  bread  hath 
good  taste,  and  this  neat's-foot  is  so  well  sod,  and  so 
cleanly  dressed,  that  it  is  able,  with  the  flavour  of  it  only, 
to  entice  any  man  to  eat  of  it.'  'What  ?  is  it  a  neat's- 
foot  ? '  '  Yes,  sir.'  '  Now,  I  promise  thee  it  is  the  best 
morsel  in  the  world  :  there  is  no  pheasant  that  I  would 
like  so  well.'  '  I  pray  thee,  sir,  prove  of  it  better  and  see 
how  you  like  it.'  .  .  .  Whereupon  he  sitteth  down  by 
me,  and  then  began  to  eat  like  one  that  hath  great  need, 
gnawing  every  one  of  those  little  bones  better  than  any 
greyhound  could  have  done  for  life,  saying,  'This  is  a 
singular  good  meal :  by  God,  I  have  eaten  it  with  a  good 


160  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

stomach,  as  if  I  had  eaten  nothing  all  this  day  before.' 
Then  I,  with  a  low  voice,  said, '  God  send  me  to  live  long 
as  sure  as  that  is  true.'  And,  having  ended  his  victuals, 
he  commanded  me  to  reach  him  the  pot  of  water,  which 
I  gave  him  even  as  full  as  I  had  brought  it  from  the 
river.  .  .  .  We  drank  both,  and  went  to  bed,  as  the 
night  before,  at  that  time  well  satisfied.  And  now,  to 
avoid  long  talk,  we  continued  after  this  sort  eight  or  nine 
days.  The  poor  gentleman  went  every  day  to  brave  it 
out  in  the  street,  to  content  himself  with  his  accustomed 
stately  pace,  and  always  I,  poor  Lazaro,  was  fain  to  be 
his  purveyor." 

Written  in  the  most  debonair,  idiomatic  Castilian, 
Lazarillo  de  Tonnes  condenses  into  nine  chapters  the 
cynicism,  the ...wit,  and  the  resource  of  an  observer  of 
genius.  After  three  hundred  years,  it  survives  all  its 
rivals,  and  may  be  read  with  as  much  edification  and 
amusement  as  on  the  day  of  its  first  appearance.  It 
set  a  fashion,  a  fashion  that  spread  to  all  countries,  and 
finds  a  nineteenth-century  manifestation  in  the  pages  of 
Pickwick ;  but  few  of  its  successors  match  it  in  satirical 
humour,  and  none  approach  it  in  pregnant  concision, 
where_no  word  is  superfluous,  and  where  every  word 
tells  with  consummate  effect.  Whoever  wrote  the  book, 
he  fixed  for  ever  the  type  of  the  comic  prose  epic  as 
rendered  by  the  needy,  and  he  did  it  in  such  wise  as  to 
defy  all  competition.  Yet  ill-advised  competitors  were 
found :  one,  who  has  the  grace  to  hide  his  name,  at 
Antwerp,  continuing  Lazaro's  adventures  by  exhibiting 
the  gay  scamp  as  a  tunny,  and  a  certain  Juan  de  Luna, 
who,  so  late  as  1620,  converted  Lazaro  to  a  sea-monster 
on  show. 

Mysticism  finds  two  distinguished  exponents,  of  whom 


JUAN   DE  AVILA   fry/vc  '         161 

the  earlier  is  the  Apostle  of  Andalucia,  the  Venerable 
JUAN  DE  AVILA  (1502-69),  a  priest,  who,  educated  at 
the  University  of  Alcala,  is  famous  for  his  sanctity,  his 
evangelic  missions  in  Granada,  Cordoba,  and  Seville. 
The  merest  accident  prevented  his  sailing  for  the  New 
World  in  the  suite  of  the  Bishop  of  Tlaxcala,  and  his 
inopportune  fervour  led  to  his  imprisonment  by  the 
Inquisition.  Most  of  his  religious  treatises,  beautiful  as 
they  are,  are  too  technical  for  our  purpose  here  ;  but  his 
Cartas  Espirituales  are  redolent  of  religious  unction  com- 
bined with  the  wisest  practical  spirit,  the  most  sagacious 
counsel,  and  the  rarest  loving-kindness.  Long  practice 
in  exhorting  crowds  of  unlettered  sinners  had  purged 
Juan  de  Avila's  style  of  the  Asiatic  exuberance  in  favour 
with  Guevara  and  other  contemporaries ;  and,  though 
he  considered  letters  a  vanity,  his  own  practice  shows 
him  to  be  a  master  in  the  accommodation  of  the  lowliest, 
most  familiar  language  to  the  loftiest  subject. 

In  the  opposite  camp  is  JUAN  DE  VALDES  (d.  1541), 
attached  in  some  capacity  to  the  court  of  Carlos  Quinto, 
and  suspect  of  heterodox  tendencies  in  the  eyes  of  all 
good  Spaniards.  Francisco  de  Encinas  reports  that 
Valdes  found  it  convenient  to  leave  Spain  on  account 
of  his  opinions  ;  but,  as  his  twin-brother,  Alfonso,  con- 
tinued in  the  service  of  Carlos  Quinto,  and  as  Juan 
himself  lived  unmolested  at  Rome  and  Naples  from  1531 
to  his  death,  this  story  cannot  be  accepted.  None  the 
less  is  it  certain  that  Valdes,  possibly  through  his  friend- 
ship with  Erasmus,  was  drawn  into  the  current  of  the 
Reformation.  His  earliest  work,  written,  perhaps,  in  col- 
laboration with  his  brother,  is  the  anonymous  Didlogo  de 
M er curio  y  Caron  (1528),  an  ingenious  fable  in  Lucian's 
manner,  abounding  in  political  and  religious  malice, 


1 62  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

charged  with  ridicule  of  abuses  in  Church  and  State. 
Apart  from  its  polemical  value,  it  is  indisputably  the 
finest  prose  performance  of  the  reign.  Boscdn's  ver- 
sion of  the  Cortegiano  most  nearly  vies  with  it ;  but 
Vald£s  excels  Boscan  in  the  artful  construction  of  his 
periods,  in  the  picturesqueness  and  moderation  of  his 
epithets,  in  the  variety  of  his  cadence,  and  in  the  re- 
fined selection  of  his  means.  It  is  possible  that  Cer- 
vantes, at  his  best,  may  match  Valdes ;  but  Cervantes  is 
one  of  the  most  unequal  writers  in  the  world,  while 
Valdc's  is  one  of  the  most  scrupulous  and  vigilant. 
Hence,  sectarian  prejudice  apart,  Valdes  must  be  ac- 
counted, if  not  absolutely  the  first,  at  least  among  the 
very  first  masters  of  Castilian  prose. 

A  curious  fact  in  connection  with  one  of  Valdes'  most 
popular  works,  the  Ciento  y  diez  Consideraciones  divinas, 
is  that  it  has  never  been  printed  in  its  original  Castilian.1 
Even  so  the  book  was  translated  into  English  by  Nicholas 
Farrer  (1638),  and  found  favour  in  the  eyes  of  George 
Herbert,  who  commends  Signior  lohn  Valdesso  as  "a 
true  servant  of  God,"  "  obscured  in  his  own  country," 
and  brought  by  God  "  to  flourish  in  this  land  of  light 
and  region  of  the  Gospel,  among  His  chosen."  It  may 
be  expedient  to  give  an  illustration  of  Valdes  from  the 
version  to  which  Herbert  stood  sponsor  : — "  Here  I  will 
add  this.  That,  as  liberality  is  so  annexed  to  magna- 
nimity that  he  cannot  be  magnanimous  that  is  not  liberal, 
so  hope  and  charity  are  so  annexed  unto  faith  that  it  is 
impossible  that  he  should  have  faith  who  hath  not  hope 
and  charity ;  it  being  also  impossible  that  one  should  be 

1  Bochmer  gives  thirty -nine  Consuieracidnes  in  the  Tratatidos  (Bonn,  1880); 
for  the  sixty-fifth  see  Mene'ndez  y  Pelayo,  Historia  de  los  Heterodoxos  Espailoles 
/Madrid,  1880),  vol.  ii.  p.  375. 


JUAN  DE  VALDES  163 

just  without  being  holy  and  pious.  But  of  these  Chris- 
tian virtues  they  are  not  capable  who  have  not  experience 
in  Christian  matters,  which  they  only  have  who,  by  the 
gift  of  God  and  by  the  benefit  of  Christ,  have  faith,  hope, 
and  charity,  and  so  are  pious,  holy,  and  just  in  Christ.'* 
The  Arian  flavour  of  this  work  explains  its  non-appear- 
ance in  Castilian,  and  we  must  suppose  that  Herbert 
esteemed  it  for  its  austere  doctrinal  asceticism  rather  than 
its  crude  anti-trinitarianism.  A  Quaker  before  his  time, 
Valdes  owes  no  small  part  of  his  recent  vogue  to  Wiffen, 
who  first  heard  of  the  Consideraciones  through  a  Friend 
as  an  "old  work  by  a  Spaniard,  which  represented  es- 
sentially the  principles  of  George  Fox."  Whatever  its 
defects,  it  is  the  one  logical  presentation  of  the  dogmas 
of  German  mysticism,  at  the  same  time  that  it  is  a 
powerful,  searching  psychological  study  of  the  springs 
of  motives  and  the  innermost  recesses  of  the  human 
heart. 

In  another  and  a  less  contested  field,  we  owe  to  Valdes 
the  admirable  Didlogo  de  la  Lengua,  written  at  Naples  in 
1535-36.  The  personages  are  four  :  two  Italians,  named 
Marcio  and  Coriolano  ;  and  two  Spaniards,  Vald6s  him- 
self, and  a  Spanish  soldier,  called  indifferently  Pacheco 
and  Torres.  For  all  purposes  this  dialogue  is  as  im- 
portant a  monument  of  literary  criticism  as  was  the 
conversation  in  Don  Quixote's  library  between  the  Priest 
and  the  Barber.  In  almost  every  case  posterity  has  rati- 
fied the  personal  verdict  of  Valdds,  who  approves  himself 
the  earliest,  as  well  as  one  of  the  most  impartial  and 
most  penetrating  among  Spanish  critics.  Moreover,  he 
conducts  his  dialogue  with  extraordinary  dramatic  skill 
in  the  true  vein  of  highest  comedy.  The  courtly  grace 
of  the  two  Italians,  the  military  swagger  of  Pacheco,  the 


1 64  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

unwearied  sagacity,  the  patrician  wit  and  disdainful 
coolness  of  Valde"s  himself,  are  given  with  incomparable 
lightness  of  touch  and  felicity  of  accent.  For  the  first 
time  in  Castilian  literature  we  have  to  do  with  a  man 
of  letters,  urbane  from  study,  and  accomplished  from 
commerce  with  a  various  world.  Vald^s  overtops  all  the 
literary  figures  of  Carlos  Quinto's  reign  in  natural  gift 
and  acquired  accomplishment ;  nor  in  later  times  do  we 
easily  find  his  match. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  AGE  OF  FELIPE  II. 

1556-1598 

IN  Spain,  as  elsewhere,  the  secular  battle  waged  between 
classicism  and  romanticism.  As  poets  sided  with  Boscan 
and  Garcilaso,  or  with  Castillejo,  so  dramatists  declared 
for  the  uso  antiguo  or  for  the  uso  nuevo.  The  partisans 
of  the  "  old  usage  "  put  their  trust  in  prose  translations. 
We  have  already  seen  that  the  roguish  Villalobos  trans- 
lated the  Amphitruo  of  Plautus,  and  Perez  de  Oliva  not 
only  repeated  the  performance,  but  gave  a  version  of 
Euripides'  Hecuba.  Encina's  successor  was  found  in  the 
person  of  Miguel  de  Carvajal,  whose  Josefina  deals,  in 
classic  fashion,  with  the  tale  of  Joseph  and  his  brethren. 
Carvajal  draws  character  with  skill,  and  his  dialogue 
lives  ;  but  he  is  best  remembered  for  his  division  of  the 
play  into  four  acts.  Editions  of  Vasco  Diaz  Tanco  de 
Fregenal  are  of  such  extreme  rarity  as  to  be  practically 
inaccessible.  So  are  the  Vidriana  of  Jaime  de  Huete 
and  the  Jacinta  of  Agusti'n  Ortiz — two  writers  who  are 
counted  as  followers  of  Torres  Naharro.  A  farce  by 
the  brilliant  reactionary,  Crist6bal  de  Castillejo,  entitled 
Costanza,  is  only  known  in  extract,  and  is  as  remark- 
able for  ribaldry  as  for  good  workmanship.  The  Preteo y 
Tibaldo  of  Pero  Alvarez  de  Ayllon  and  the  Silviana  of 

Luis  Hurtado  are  insipid  pastorals.    Many  contemporary 

165 


1 66  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

plays,  known  only  by  rumour,  have  disappeared — sup- 
pressed, no  doubt,  because  of  their  coarseness.  Torres 
Naharro's  Propaladia  was  interdicted  in  1540,  and,  eight 
years  later,  the  Cortes  of  Valladolid  petitioned  that  a 
stop  be  put  to  the  printing  of  immoral  comedies.  The 
prayer  was  heard.  Scarce  a  play  of  any  sort  survives, 
and  the  few  that  reach  us  exist  in  copies  that  are  almost 
unique.  The  time  for  the  stage  was  not  yet.  It  is 
possible  that,  had  Carlos  Quinto  resided  habitually  in 
some  Spanish  capital,  a  national  theatre  might  have 
grown  up  ;  but  the  lack  of  Court  patronage  and  the 
classical  superstition  delayed  the  evolution  of  the  Spanish 
drama.  This  comes  into  being  during  the  reign  of 
Felipe  el  Prudente. 

Encina's  precedence  in  the  sacred  pastoral  is  granted  ; 
but  his  eclogues  were  given  before  small,  aristocratic 
audiences.  We  must  look  elsewhere  for  the  first  popular 
dramatist,  and  Lope  de  Vega,  an  expert  on  theatrical 
matters,  identifies  our  man.  "Comedies,"  says  Lope, 
"  are  no  older  than  Rueda,  whom  many  now  living  have 
heard."  The  gold-beater,  LOPE  DE  RUEDA  (fl.  1558),  was 
a  native  of  Seville.  A  prefatory  sonnet  to  his  Medora, 
written  by  Francisco  Ledesma,  informs  us  that  Rueda 
died  at  C6rdoba,  and  Cervantes  adds  the  detail  that  he 
was  buried  in  the  cathedral  there.  This  would  go  to 
show  that  a  Spanish  comedian  was  not  then  a  pariah  ; 
unluckily,  the  cathedral  archives  do  not  corroborate  the 
story.  Taking  to  the  boards,  Lope  de  Rueda  rose  to  be 
an  autor  de  comedias — an  actor-manager  and  playwright. 
Cervantes,  who  speaks  enthusiastically  of  Rueda's  acting, 
describes  the  material  conditions  of  the  scene.  "  In  the 
days  of  this  famous  Spaniard,  the  whole  equipment  of 
an  autor  de  comedias  could  be  put  in  a  bag  :  it  consisted 


LOPE  DE  RUEDA  167 

of  four  white  sheepskins  edged  with  gilt  leather,  four 
beards  and  wigs,  and  four  shepherd's-staves,  more  or 
less.  .  .  .  No  figure  rose,  or  seemed  to  rise,  from  the 
bowels  of  the  earth  or  from  the  space  under  the  stage, 
which  was  built  up  by  four  benches  placed  square-wise, 
with  four  or  six  planks  on  top,  about  four  hand's-breadths 
above  ground.  Still  less  were  clouds  lowered  from  the 
sky  with  angels  or  spirits.  The  theatrical  scenery  was 
an  old  blanket,  hauled  hither  and  thither  by  two  cords. 
This  formed  what  they  called  the  vestuario,  behind  which 
were  the  musicians,  who  sang  some  old  romance  without 
a  guitar."  This  account  is  substantially  correct,  though 
official  documents  in  the  Seville  archives  go  to  prove 
that  Cervantes  unconsciously  exaggerated  some  details — 
a  thing  natural  enough  in  a  man  recalling  memories  fifty 
years  old.  A  passage  in  the  Cronica  del  Condestable  Miguel 
Lucas  Iranzo  implies  that  women  appeared  in  the  early 
momos  or  entremeses.  But  Spaniards  inherited  the  Arab 
notion  that  women  are  best  indoors.  The  fact  that 
Rueda  was  the  first  man  to  choose  his  pitch  in  the 
public  place,  and  to  appeal  to  the  general,  would  explain 
his  substitution  of  boys  for  girls  in  the  female  characters. 
Rueda  was  the  first  in  Spain  to  bring  the  drama  into 
the  day.  One  of  his  personages  in  Eufemia — the  servant 
Vallejo — makes  a  direct  appeal  to  the  public  : — "Ye  who 
listen,  go  and  dine,  and  then  come  back  to  the  square, 
if  you  wish  to  see  a  traitor's  head  cut  off  and  a  true 
man  set  free."  Thenceforward  the  theatre  becomes  a 
popular  institution. 

Lope  de  Rueda  is  often  called  el  excelente  poeta,  and  his 
verse  is  exampled  in  the  Prendas  de  Amor,  as  also  in  the 
Didlogo  sobre  la  Invention  de  las  Calzas.  The  Farsa  del 
Sordot  included  by  the  Marques  de  la  Fuensanta  del 

12 


1 68  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

Valle  in  his  admirable  new  edition  of  Rueda's  works,  is 
almost  certainly  due  to  another  hand.  Cervantes  com- 
mends Rueda's  versos  pastoriles,  but  these  only  reach  us 
in  the  fragment  which  Cervantes  himself  quotes  in  Los 
Bafios  de  ArgeL  Still,  it  is  not  as  a  poet  that  Rueda  lives : 
he  is  rightly  remembered  as  the  patriarch  of  the  Spanish 
stage.  For  his  time  and  station  he  was  well  read  :  Lopez 
Madera  will  have  it  that  he  knew  Theocritus,  and  it  may 
be  so.  More  manifest  are  the  Plautine  touches  in  the 
paso  which  Moratfn  names  El  Rufidn  Cobarde,  with  its 
bully,  Sigtienza,  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  Miles  Glo- 
riosus.  It  has  been  inferred  that,  in  choosing  Italian 
themes,  Rueda  followed  Torres  Naharro.  This  gives  a 
wrong  impression,  for  his  debt  to  the  Italians  is  far  more 
direct.  The  Eufemia  takes  its  root  in  the  Decamerone, 
being  identical  in  subject  with  Cymbeline ;  the  Armelina 
is  compounded  of  Antonio  Francesco  Ranieri's  Attilia, 
with  Giovanni  Maria  Cecchi's  Servigiale ;  the  Engaflos 
is  a  frank  imitation  of  Niccolo  Secchi's  Commedia  degli 
Inganni;  and  the  Medora  is  conveyed  straight  from  Gigio 
Arthenio  Giancarli's  Zingara.1 

Neither  in  his  fragments  of  verse  nor  in  his  Italian 
echoes  is  the  true  Rueda  revealed.  His  historic  im- 
portance lies  in  his  invention  of  the  paso — a  dramatic 

1  The  sources  are  carefully  traced  by  L.  A.  Stiefel  in  the  Zeitschrift  fur 
Romanischc  Philologie  (vol.  xx.  pp.  183  and  318).  One  specimen  suffices 
here : — 


GlANCARLI,  iii.  1 6. 

Falisco.  Padrone,  o  che  la  imagi- 
natione  m'inganna,  o  pur  quella  e  la 
vuestra  Madonna  Angelica. 

Cassandra.  Sarebbe  gran  cosa  che 


RUEDA,  Escena  iii. 

Falisco.  Senor,  la  vista  6  la  imagi- 
nacion  me  engaua  6  es  aquella  vuestra 
muy  querida  Angelica. 

Casandro.    Gran   cosa   seria   si   la 


laimaginationeinganassameanchora,       imaginacion    no    te   enganase,    antes 
perch'  io  voleva  dirloti,  etc.  \   yo  te  lo  queria  decir,  etc. 


LOPE  DE   RUEDA  169 

interlude  turning  on  some  simple  episode  :  a  quarrel 
between  Torubio  and  his  wife  Agueda  concerning  the 
price  of  olives  not  yet  planted,  an  invitation  to  dinner 
from  the  penniless  licentiate  Xaquima.  Rueda's  most 
spirited  work  is  given  in  the  Deleitoso  Compendia  (1567)^ 
and  in  the  Registro  de  Representantes  (1570),  both  pub- 
lished by  his  friend,  Juan  de  Timoneda.  In  a  longer 
flight  the  effect  is  less  pleasing ;  the  prose  Coloquio  de 
Camila  and  its  fellow,  the  Coloquio  de  Timbrta,  are  long 
PUSOS,  complicated  in  development  and  not  drawn  to 
scale.  Still,  even  here  there  is  a  keen  dramatic  sense  of 
situation  ;  while  the  comic  extravagance  of  the  themes — 
farcical  incidents  in  picaresque  surroundings— is  set  off 
by  spirited  dialogue  and  vigorous  style.  Rueda_Jiad 
clearlyread  the  Celestina  to  his  profit ;  and  his  prose, 
with  its  archaic  savour,  is  of  great  purity  and  power. 
The  patriotic  Lista  comes  as  near  flat  blasphemy  as  a 
good  Spaniard  may  by  mentioning  Rueda  in  the  same 
breath  as  Cervantes,  and  that  the  latter  learned  much 
from  his  predecessor  is  manifest ;  but  the  point  need 
be  pressed  no  further.  Considerable  as  were  Rueda's 
positive  qualities  of  gay  wit  and  inventive  resource,  his 
highest  merit  lies  in  this,  that  he  laid  the  foundation- 
stone  of  the  actual  Spanish  theatre,  and  that  his  dramatic 
system  became  a  capital  factor  in  his  people's  intellectual 
history. 

He  found  instant  imitators  :  one  in  a  brother  actor- 
manager,  Alonso  de  la  Vega  (d.  1566),  whose  Tolomea  is 
adapted  from  Medora ;  the  other  in  Luis  de  Miranda 
(fl.  1554),  who  dramatised  the  story  of  the  Prodigal,  to 
which,  in  a  monstrous  fit  of  realism,  he  gave  a  contem- 
porary setting.  Of  Pedro  Navarro  or  Naharro,  whom 
Cervantes  ranks  after  Rueda,  naught  survives.  Francisco 


1 70  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

de  Avendafto's  verse  comedy  concerning  Floriseo  and 
Blancaflor  had  long  since  been  forgotten  were  it  not  for 
the  fact  that  here,  for  the  first  time,  a  Spanish  play  is 
divided  into  three  acts  —  a  convention  which  has  en- 
dured, and  for  which  later  writers,  like  Artieda,  Virues, 
and  Cervantes,  ingenuously  claimed  the  credit.  JUAN  DE 
TIMONEDA  (d.  ?  1598),  the  Valencian  bookseller  who 
printed  Rueda's  pasos,  is  a  sedulous  mimic  in  every  sort. 
He  began  by  arranging  Plautus'  Comedy  of  Errors  in 
Los  Menecmos ;  his  Cornelia  is  based  upon  Ariosto's 
Nigromante ;  and  his  Oveja  Perdida  adapts  an  early 
morality  on  the  Lost  Sheep  with  scarcely  a  suggestion 
of  original  treatment.  Torres  Naharro  is  the  inspira- 
tion of  Timoneda's  Aurelia;  but  his  chief  tempter  \vas 
Lope  de  Rueda.  In  the  volume  entitled  Turiana  (1565), 
issued  under  the  anagrammatic  name  of  Joan  Diamonte, 
he  attempts  the  paso  (which  he  also  calls  the  entremes) 
to  good  purpose.  An  imitator  he  remains ;  but  an 
imitator  whose  pleasant  humour  takes  the  place  of 
invention,  and  whose  lively  prose  dialogue  is  in  ex- 
cellent contrast  with  his  futile  verse.  His  Patraiiuelo, 
a  collection  of  some  twenty  traditional  stories,  is  a 
well-meant  attempt  to  satisfy  the  craving  created  by 
Lazarillo  de  Tormes.  If  Timoneda  experimented  in 
every  field,  it  is  not  unjust  to  infer  that,  taking  the 
tradesman's  view  of  literature,  he  was  moved  less 
by  intelligent  curiosity  than  by  the  desire  to  supply 
his  customers  with  novelties.  Withal,  if  he  be  not 
individual,  his  unpolished  drolleries  are  vastly  more 
engaging  than  the  ambitious  triflings  of  many  con- 
temporaries. 

Pacheco,  the  father-in-law   of   Veldzquez,  notes   that 
Juan  de  Malara  (1527-71)  composed  "many  tragedies" 


MALARA:    CUEVA  171 

both  in  Latin  and  Castilian  ;  and  Cueva,  in  his  Ejemplar 
poetico,  gives  the  number  hyperbolically  : — 

"  En  el  teatro  mil  tragedias  puso" 

That  Malara,  or  any  one  save  Lope  de  Vega,  "  placed  a 
thousand  tragedies  on  the  boards,"  is  incredible  ;  but  by 
general  consent  his  fecundity  was  prodigious.  None  of 
his  plays  survives,  and  we  are  left  to  gather,  from  a 
chance  remark  of  the  author's,  that  he  wrote  a  tragedy 
entitled  Absalon  and  another  drama  called  Locusta.  His 
repute  as  a  poet  must  be  accepted,  if  at  all,  on  autho- 
rity ;  for  his  extant  imitations  of  Virgil  and  renderings 
of  Martial  are  mere  technical  exercises.  For  us  he  is 
best  represented  by  his  Filosofia  vulgar  (1568),  an  ad- 
mirable selection  made  from  the  six  thousand  proverbs 
brought  together  by  Hernan  Nunez,  who  thus  continued 
what  Santillana  had  begun.  A  contemporary,  Blasco  de 
Garay  (fl.  1553),  had  striven  to  prove  the  resources  of 
the  language  by  printing,  in  his  Cartas  de  Refranes,  three 
ingenious  letters  wholly  made  up  of  proverbial  phrases  ; 
and  in  our  own  day  the  incomparable  wealth  of  Cas- 
tilian proverbs  has  been  shown  in  Sbarbi's  Refranero 
General  and  in  Haller's  Altspanische  SpricJitworter.  But 
no  later  and  fuller  collection  has  supplanted  Malara's 
learned  and  vivacious  commentary. 

His  friend,  JUAN  DE  LA  CUEVA  DE  GAROZA  of  Seville 
(71550-?  1606),  matched  Malara  in  productiveness,  and 
perhaps  surpassed  him  in  talent.  Little  is  known  of 
Cueva's  life,  save  that  he  had  certain  love  passages  with 
Bri'gida  Lucia  de  Belmonte,  and  that  he  became  almost 
insane  for  a  short  while  after  her  death.  He  distin- 
guishes himself  by  his  independence  of  the  Senecan 
example,  which  he  roundly  declares  to  be  at  once  in- 


i;2  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

artistic  and  tedious  (cansada  cosa),  and  by  urging  the 
Spanish  dramatists  to  abjure  abstractions  and  to  treat 
national  themes  without  regard  for  Greek  and  Latin 
superstitions.  Incident,  character,  plot,  situation,  variety : 
these  are  to  be  developed  with  small  regard  for  "  the 
unities"  of  the  classic  model.  And  Cueva  carried  out 
his  doctrines.  Ignoring  Carvajal,  he  took  a  special  pride 
in  reducing  plays  from  five  acts  to  four,  and  he  enriched 
the  drama  by  introducing  a  multitude  of  metrical  forms 
hitherto  unknown  upon  the  stage.  The  cunning  fable 
of  the  people — la  ingeniosa  fdbula  de  Espafia — is  illus- 
trated in  his  Siete  Infantes  de  Lara,  in  his  Cerco  de 
Zamora  (Siege  of  Zamora),  where  he  utilises  subjects 
enshrined  in  romances  which  half  his  audience  knew  by 
heart.  It  is  literally  true  that  he  had  been  preceded  by 
Bartolome  Palau,  who,  as  far  back  as  1524,  had  written 
a  play  on  a  national  subject — the  Historia  de  la  gloriosa 
Santa  Orosia,  published  in  1883  by  Fernandez-Guerra  y 
Orbe  ;  but  this  was  an  isolated,  fruitless  essay,  whereas 
Cueva's  was  a  deliberate,  well-organised  attempt  to  shape 
the  drama  anew  and  to  quicken  it  into  active  life.  Nor 
did  Cueva's  mission  end  with  indicating  the  possibilities 
of  dramatic  motive  afforded  by  heroico-popular  songs 
and  legends.  His  Saco  de  Roma  y  Muerte  de  Borbon 
exploits  an  historical  actuality  by  dramatising  Carlos 
Quinto's  Italian  triumphs  (1527-30) ;  and  his  El  In- 
famador  (The  Calumniator)  not  merely  foreshadows  the 
comedia  de  capa  y  espada,  but  gives  us  in  his  libertine, 
Leucino,  the  first  sketch  of  the  type  which  Tirso  de 
Molina  was  to  eternalise  as  Don  Juan. 

It  is  certain  that  Cueva  was  often  less  successful  in  per- 
formance than  in  doctrine,  and  that  his  gods  and  devils, 
his  saints  and  ruffians,  too  often  talk  in  the  same  lofty 


BERMUDEZ:    ARTIEDA  173 

vein — the  vein  of  Juan  de  la  Cueva.  It  is  no  less  certain 
that  he  improvises  recklessly,  placing  his  characters  in 
difficulties  whence  escape  is  impossible,  and  that  he  takes 
the  first  solution  that  offers — a  murder,  a  supernatural 
interposition — with  no  heed  for  plausibility.  But  his 
bombast  is  the  trick  of  his  school,  and,  to  judge  by  his 
epical  Conqiiista  de  la  Betica  (1603),  he  showed  remark- 
able self-suppression  in  his  plays.  In  his  later  years, 
after  visiting  the  Western  Indies,  he  seems  to  have 
abandoned  the  theatre  which  he  had  so  courageously 
developed,  and  to  have  wasted  himself  upon  his  epic 
and  the  poor  confection  of  old  ballads  which  he  pub- 
lished in  the  ten  books  entitled  Coro  Febeo  de  Romances 
historiales.  Yet,  despite  these  backslidings,  he  merits 
gratitude  for  his  dramatic  initiative. 

The  Galician  Dominican,  Ger6nimo  Bermudez  (1530- 
89),  apologises  for  his  presentation  in  Castilian  of  the 
Nise  Lastimosa,  which  he  published  under  the  name  of 
Antonio  de  Silva  in  1577.  Bermudez  has  seemingly  done 
little  more  than  rearrange  the  Inez  de  Castro  of  the  dis- 
tinguished Portuguese  poet,  Antonio  Ferreira,  who  had 
died  eight  years  earlier.  Though  this  "  correct "  play  has 
tirades  of  remarkable  beauty  in  the  Senecan  manner,  its 
loose  construction  unfits  it  for  the  stage.  All  that  it 
contains  of  good  is  due  to  Ferreira,  and  its  continuation 
— the  Nise  Laureada — is  a  mere  collection  of  incoherent 
extravagances  and  brutalities,  conceived  in  Thomas  Kyd's 
most  frenzied  mood. 

The  Captain  ANDRES  KEY  DE  ARTIEDA  (1549-1613)  is 
said  to  have  been  born  at  Valencia,  and  he  certainly  died 
there  ;  yet  Lope  de  Vega,  once  his  friend,  speaks  of  him 
as  a  native  of  Zaragoza.  Artieda  was  a  brilliant  soldier, 
who  received  three  wounds  at  Lepanto,  and  his  con- 


i74  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

spicuous  bravery  was  shown  in  the  Low  Countries, 
where  he  swam  the  Ems  in  mid-winter  under  the  enemy's 
fire,  with  his  sword  between  his  teeth.  'He  is  known  to 
have  written  plays  entitled  Amadis  de  Gaula  and  Los 
Encantos  de  Merlin,  but  his  one  extant  drama  is  Los 
Amantes :  the  first  appearance  on  the  stage  of  those 
lovers  of  Teruel  who  were  destined  to  attract  Tirso 
de  Molina,  Montalban,  and  Hartzenbusch.  Artieda  is 
essentially  a  follower  of  Cueva's,  and  he  has  something 
of  his  model's  clumsy  manipulation  ;  but  his  dramatic 
instinct,  his  pathos  and  tenderness,  are  his  personal  en- 
dowment. In  his  own  day  he  was  an  innovator  in  his 
kind  :  his  opposition  to  the  methods  of  Lope  made  him 
unpopular,  and  condemned  him  to  an  unmerited  neglect, 
which  he  bitterly  resented  in  the  miscellaneous  Discursos, 
eplstolas  y  epigramas,  published  by  him  (1605)  under  the 
name  of  Artemidoro. 

Another  dramatist  and  friend  of  Lope  de  Vega's  was 
the  Valencian  Captain  CRISTOBAL  DE  VlRUfis  (1550-1610), 
Artieda's  comrade  at  Lepanto  and  in  the  Low  Countries. 
Unfortunately  for  himself,  Viru6s  had  his  share  of 
learning,  and  misused  it  in  his  Semiramis,  an  absurd 
medley  of  pedantry  and  horror.  His  Atila  Furioso, 
involving  more  slaughter  than  many  an  outpost  en- 
gagement, is  the  maddest  caricature  of  romanticism. 
He  appears  to  think  that  indecency  is  comedy,  and 
that  the  way  to  terror  lies  through  massacre.  It  is  the 
eternal  fault  of  Spain,  this  forcing  of  the  note  ;  and  it 
would  seem  that  Virues  repented  him  in  Elisa  Dido, 
where  he  returns  to  the  apparatus  of  the  Senecan  school. 
Yet,  with  all  their  defects,  his  earlier  attempts  were 
better,  inasmuch  as  they  presaged  a  new  method,  and 
a  determination  to  have  done  with  a  sterile  formula.  He 


VIRUES:    ARGENSOLA  175 

essayed  the  epic  in  his  Historia  del  Monserrate,  and  once 
more  courted  disaster  by  his  choice  of  subject :  the 
outrage  and  murder  of  the  Conde  de  Barcelona's  daughter 
by  the  hermit  Juan  Gan'n,  the  Roman  pilgrimage  of  the 
assassin,  and  the  miraculous  resurrection  of  his  victim. 
As  in  his  plays,  so  in  his  epic,  Virues  is  an  inventor 
without  taste,  brilliant  in  a  single  page  and  intolerable 
in  twenty.  His  tactless  fluency  bade  for  applause  at  any 
cost,  and  his  incessant  care  to  startle  and  to  terrify 
results  in  a  monstrous  monotony.  Yet,  if  he  failed 
himself,  his  exaggerated  protest  encouraged  others  to 
seek  a  more  perfect  way,  and,  though  he  had  no  direct 
influence  on  the  stage,  he  is  interesting  as  an  embodied 
remonstrance. 

His  mantle  was  caught  by  Joaqum  Romero  de  Cepeda 
of  Badajoz  (fl.  1582),  whose  Selvajia  is  a  dramatic 
arrangement  of  the  Celestina,  with  extravagant  episodes 
suggested  by  the  chivalresque  novels ;  and  in  the  oppo- 
site camp  is  the  Aragonese  LUPERCIO  LEONARDO  DE 
ARGENSOLA  (1559-1613),  whom  Cervantes  esteemed 
almost  as  good  a  dramatist  as  himself — which,  from 
Cervantes'  standpoint,  is  saying  much.  Cervantes  praises 
Argensola,  not  merely  because  his  plays  "  delighted  and 
amazed  all  who  heard  them,"  but  for  the  practical  reason 
that  "these  three  alone  brought  in  more  money  than 
thirty  of  the  best  given  since  their  time."  If  it  be  un- 
charitable to  conceive  that  this  aims  at  Lope  de  Vega, 
we  are  bound  to  suppose  that  Argensola's  popularity 
was  immense.  It  was  also  fleeting.  His  Fills  has  dis- 
appeared, and  his  Isabela  and  Alejandro,  were  not  printed 
till  1772,  when  Lopez  de  Sedano  included  them  in  his 
Parnaso  Espaiiol.  The  Alejandro,  is  a  tissue  of  butcheries, 
and  the  Isabela  is  scarcely  better,  the  nine  chief  charac- 


1 76  SPANISH   LITERATURE 


ters  being  killed  out  of  hand.  Argensola's  excuse  is  that 
he  was  only  a  lad  of  twenty  when  he  perpetrated  these 
iniquities ;  where,  for  the  rest,  he  already  proves  him- 
self endowed  with  that  lyrical  gift  which  was  to  win  for 
him  the  not  excessive  title  of  "the  Spanish  Horace." 
But  he  was  never  reconciled  to  his  defeat  as  a  drama- 
tist, and  he  avenged  himself  in  1597  by  inditing  a 
spiteful  letter  to  the  King,  praying  that  the  prohibition 
of  plays  on  the  occasion  of  the  Queen  of  Piedmont's 
death  should  be  made  permanent.  The  urbanity  of 
men  of  letters  is,  it  will  be  seen,  constant  everywhere. 

The  school  founded  by  Boscdn  and  Garcilaso  spread 
into  Portugal,  and  bifurcated  into  Spanish  factions  settled 
in  Salamanca  and  in  Seville.  BALTASAR  DE  ALCAZAR 
(1530-1606),  who  served  under  that  stout  sea-dog  the 
Marques  de  Santa  Cruz,  is  technically  an  adherent  of 
the  Sevillan  sect ;  but  his  laughing  muse  lends  herself 
with  an  ill  grace  to  artificial  sentiment,  and  is  happiest 
in  stinging  epigrams,  in  risky  jests,  and  in  gay  romances. 
DiEGO  GiR6N  (d.  1590),  a  pupil  of  Malara's,  is  an  ardent 
Italianate  :  prompt  to  challenge  comparison  with  Gar- 
cilaso by  reproducing  Corydon  and  Tirsis  from  the 
seventh  Virgilian  eclogue,  to  mimic  Seneca — "him  of 
C6rdoba  dead" — or  to  echo  the  note  of  Giorolamo 
Bosso.  His  verses,  mostly  hidden  away  among  the 
annotations  made  by  Herrera  in  his  edition  of  Garcilaso, 
deserve  to  be  better  known  for  specimens  of  sound 
craftsmanship. 

The  greatest  poet  of  the  Sevillan  group  is  indisputably 
FERNANDO  DE  HERRERA  (1534-97),  who  comes  into 
touch  with  England  as  the  writer  of  an  eulogy  on  Sir 
Thomas  More.  Cleric  though  he  were,  Herrera  dedi- 


HERRERA  177 

cated  much  of  his  verse  (1582)  to  Leonor  de  Milan, 
Condesa  de  Gelves,  wife  of  Alvaro  de  Portugal,  himself 
a  fashionable  versifier.  Herrera  being  a  clerk  in  minor 
orders,  the  situation  is  piquant,  and  opinions  differ  as 
to  whether  his  erotic  songs  are,  or  are  not,  platonic. 
It  is  another  variant  of  the  classic  cases  of  Laura  and 
Petrarch,  of  Catalina  de  Atayde  and  Camoes.  All  good 
Sevillans  contend  that  Herrera,  as  the  chief  of  Spanish 
petrarquistas,  indited  sonnets  to  his  mistress  in  imitation 
of  the  master  : — 

"  So  the  great  Tuscan  to  the  beauteous  Laura 
Breathed  his  sublime,  his  wonder-working  song." 

Disguised  as  Eliodora,  Leonor  is  Herrera's  firmament : 
his  luz,  sol,  estrella — light,  sun,  and  star.  And  no  small 
part  of  the  love-sequence  is  passionless  and  even  frigid. 
Yet  not  all  the  elegies  are  compact  of  conceit ;  a  genuine 
emotion  bursts  forth  elsewhere  than  in  the  famous  line : — 

"  Now  sorrow  passes  :  now  at  length  I  live" 

In  view  of  the  poet's  metaphysical  refinements  no  de- 
cisive judgment  is  possible,  and  the  dispute  will  continue 
for  all  time ;  perhaps  the  real  posture  of  affairs  is  indi- 
cated by  Latour's  happy  phrase  concerning  Herrera's 
"innocent  immorality." 

Fine  as  are  isolated  passages  in  these  "vain,  amato- 
rious"  rhapsodies,  the  true  Herrera  is  best  revealed  in 
his  ode  to  Don  Juan  de  Austria  on  the  occasion  of  the 
Moorish  revolt  in  the  Alpujarra,  in  his  elegy  on  the 
death  of  Sebastian  of  Portugal  at  Alcazar  al-Kebir,  in 
his  song  upon  the  victory  of  Lepanto.  In  patriotism 
Herrera  found  his  noblest  inspiration,  and  in  these  three 
great  pieces  he  attains  an  exceptional  energy  and  con- 
ciseness of  form.  He  sings  the  triumph  of  the  true 


1 78  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

faith  with  an  Hebraic  fervour,  a  stateliness  derived  from 
biblical  cadences,  as  he  mourns  the  overthrow  of  Chris- 
tianity, "the  weapons  of  war  perished,"  in  accents  of 
profound  affliction.  His  sincerity  and  his  lyrical  splen- 
dour place  him  in  the  foremost  rank  of  his  country's 
singers  ;  and  hence  his  title  of  El  divino. 

Differing  in  temperament  from  Garcilaso,  Herrera  may 
be  considered  as  the  true  inheritor  of  his  predecessor's 
unfulfilled  renown.  Two  of  his  finest  sonnets — one  to 
Carlos  Quinto,  the  other  to  Don  Juan  de  Austria — are 
superior  to  any  in  Garcilaso's  page.  The  latter  may  be 
exampled  here  in  Archdeacon  Churton's  rendering : — 

"  Deep  sea,  whose  thundering  waves  in  tumult  roar, 
Call  forth  thy  troubled  spirit — bid  him  rise, 
And  gaze,  with  terror  pale,  and  hollow  eyes, 

On  floods  all  flashing  fire,  and  red  with  gore. 

Lo  !  as  in  list  enclosed,  on  battle-floor 

Christian  and  Sarzan,  life  and  death  the  prize, 
Join  conflict :  lo  !  the  battered  Paynim  flies; 

The  din,  the  smouldering  flames,  he  braves  no  more. 

Go,  bid  thy  deep-toned  bass  with  voice  of  power 
Tell  of  this  mightiest  victory  under  sky, 
This  deed  of  peerless  valour's  highest  strain; 

And  say  a  youth  achieved  the  glorious  hour, 

Hallowing  thy  gulf  with  praise  that  n£er  shall  die, — 
The  youth  of  Austria,  and  the  might  of  Spain" 

Herrera  takes  up  the  tradition  of  his  forerunner,  per- 
fects his  form,  imparts  a  greater  sonority  of  expression, 
a  deeper  note  of  pathos  and  dignity.  The  soldier,  with 
his  languid  sentiment,  might  be  the  priest ;  the  priest, 
with  his  martial  music,  might  be  the  soldier.  Yet 
Herrera's  fealty  never  wavers ;  for  him  there  is  but  one 
model,  one  pattern,  one  perfect  singer.  "  In  our  Spain," 
he  avers,  "Garcilaso  stands  first,  beyond  compare."  And 


HERRERA  179 

in  this  spirit,  aided  by  suggestions  from  the  poet's  son- 
in-law,  Puerto  Carrero,  aided  also  by  illustrations  from 
the  whole  Sevillan  group, — Francisco  de  Medina,  Diego 
Giron,  Francisco  Pacheco,  and  Crist6bal  Mosquera  de 
Figueroa, — Herrera  undertook  his  commentary,  Anota- 
ciones  d  las  obras  de  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega  (1580).  Its 
publication  caused  one  of  the  bitterest  quarrels  in 
Spanish  literary  history. 

Four  years  earlier  Garcilaso  had  been  edited  by  the 
learned  Francisco  Sanchez  (1523-1601),  commonly  called 
El  Brocense,  from  Las  Brozas,  his  birthplace,  in  Extre- 
madura  ;  and  an  excitable  admirer  of  the  poet,  Fran- 
cisco de  los  Cobos,  denounced  Sanchez  for  exhibiting 
his  author's  debts  by  means  of  parallel  passages.  The 
partisans  of  Sanchez  took  Herrera's  commentary  as  a 
challenge,  and  were  not  mollified  by  the  fact  that  He- 
rrera nowhere  mentioned  Sanchez  by  name.  It  had  been 
bad  enough  that  an  Extremaduran  pundit  should  edit 
a  Castilian  poet ;  that  a  mere  Andaluci'an  should  repeat 
the  outrage  was  insufferable.  It  was  as  though  an  Eng- 
lishman edited  Burns.  The  Clan  of  Clonglocketty  (or 
of  Castile)  rose  as  one  man,  and  Herrera  was  flagellated 
by  a  tribe  of  scurrilous,  illiterate  patriots.  Among  his 
more  urbane  opponents  was  Juan  Fernandez  de  Velasco, 
Conde  de  Haro,  son  of  the  Constable  of  Spain,  who 
published  his  Observaciones  under  the  pseudonym  of 
Prete  Jacopi'n,  and  was  rapturously  applauded  for  calling 
Herrera  an  ass  in  a  lion's  skin.  It  is  discouraging  to 
record  that  Haro's  impertinence  went  through  several 
editions,  while  Herrera's  commentary  has  never  been 
reprinted.1  Yet  this  monument  of  enlightened  learning 

1  I  learn  that  D.  Marcelino  Menendez  y  Pelayo  is  preparing  a  new  edition 
of  the  Anotaciones. 


1 8o  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

reveals  its  author,  not  only  as  the  best  lyrist,  but  as  the 
acutest  critic  of  his  age.  Cervantes  knew  it  almost  by 
heart,  and  he  honoured  it  by  writing  his  dedication  of 
Don  Quixote  to  the  Duque  de  Bejar  in  the  very  words 
of  Medina's  preface  and  of  Herrera's  epistle  to  the 
Marques  de  Ayamonte.  So  that,  since  countless  readers 
have  admired  a  passage  from  the  Anotaciones  without 
knowing  it,  Herrera  the  prose-writer  has  enjoyed  a 
vicarious  immortality. 

The  most  eminent  poet  of  the  Salamancan  school  is 
Luis  PONCE  DE  LE<5N  (1529-91),  a  native  of  Belmonte 
de  Cuenca,  who  joined  the  Augustinian  order  in  his 
eighteenth  year,  and  became  professor  of  theology  at 
the  University  of  Salamanca  in  1561.  He  soon  found 
himself  in  the  midst  of  a  theological  squabble  as  to  the 
comparative  merits  of  the  Septuagint  and  the  Hebrew 
MSS.  Rivals  spread  the  legend — fatal  in  Spain — that 
he  was  of  Jewish  descent,  and  that  he  conspired  with  the 
Hebrew  professors,  Martinet  de  Cantalapiedra  and  Grajal, 
in  interpreting  Scripture  accbrding  to  Jewish  traditions* 
His  chief  opponent  was  Le6n  de  Castro,  who  held  the 
Greek  chair.  Public  discussions  were  the  fashion,  and 
debates  waxed  acrimonious,  after  the  custom  of  pro- 
fessors at  large.  On  one  occasion  Luis  de  Leon  went 
so  far  as  to  threaten  Castro  with  the  public  burning  of 
the  latter's  treatise  on  Isaiah.  Castro  was  not  the  man 
to  flinch,  and  anticipated  his  enemy  by  denouncing  Fray 
Luis  to  the  Inquisition.  The  matter  would  doubtless 
have  ended  here,  had  it  not  been  discovered  that  Fray 
Luis  had  translated  the  Song  of  Solomon  into  Castilian  : 
a  grave  offence  in  the  eyes  of  the  Holy  Office,  which, 
rejecting  the  Lutheran  formula  of  "every  man  his  own 
pope,"  forbade  the  circulation  of  Bibles  in  the  verna- 


LUIS  DE  LE6N  181 

cular.  In  March  1572  Luis  de  Leon  was  arrested,  and 
was  kept  a  prisoner  by  the  local  authorities  for  four  and 
a  half  years,  during  which  he  was  baited  with  questions 
calculated  to  convict  him  of  heresy  and  to  involve  his 
friend  Benito  Arias  Montano.  Notwithstanding  the 
efforts  of  Bartolome  Medina  and  his  brother-Domini- 
cans, Fray  Luis  was  acquitted  on  December  7,  1576. 
Judged  by  modern  standards,  he  was  harshly  treated  ; 
but  toleration  is  a  modern  birth,  begotten  by  indif- 
ference and  fear.  In  the  sixteenth  century  men  believed 
what  they  professed,  and  acted  on  their  beliefs — the 
Spaniards  by  imprisoning  their  own  countryman,  Luis 
de  Leon  ;  Calvin  by  burning  Harvey's  forerunner,  the 
Spaniard  Miguel  Servet.  Fray  Luis  was  the  last  of  men 
to  whine  and  whimper  :  he  was  judged  by  the  tribunal 
of  his  own  choosing,  the  tribunal  with  which  he  had 
menaced  Castro:  and  the  result  vindicated  his  choice.1 
Ex  forti  dulcedo.  The  indomitable  nobility  of  his  char- 
acter is  visible  in  the  first  words  he  uttered  on  his 
return  to  the  chair  which  Salamanca  had  kept  for  him : — 
"Gentlemen,  as  we  were  saying  the  other  day."  In 
1591  he  was  elected  Vicar-General  of  Castile,  was  chosen 
Provincial  of  his  order,  and  was  then  commanded, 
against  his  will,  to  publish  all  his  writings.  He  died 
ten  days  later. 

In  prison  Fray  Luis  wrote  his  celebrated  treatise,  the 
greatest  of  Spanish  mystic  books,  Los  Nombres  de  Cristo, 
a  series  of  dissertations,  in  Plato's  manner,  on  the  sym- 
bolic value  of  such  names  of  Christ  as  the  Mount,  the 
Shepherd,  the  Arm  of  God,  the  Prince  of  Peace,  the 
Bridegroom.  Published  in  1583,  the  exposition  is  cast 

1  For  a  full  and  very  able  account  of  the  proceedings,  see  Alejandro  Arango 
y  Escandon's  Ensayo  histArico  (Mejico,  1866). 


1 82  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

in  the  form  of  a  dialogue,  in  which  Marcelo,  Sabino, 
and  Julian  examine  the  theological  mysteries  implied 
by  the  subject.  With  Fray  Luis's  theology  we  have 
no  concern ;  nor  with  his  learning,  save  in  so  far  as 
it  is  curious  to  see  the  Hellenic-Alexandrine  leaven 
working  through  in  his  imitation  of  St.  Clement's  Epistle 
to  the  Corinthians.  But  his  concise  eloquence  and  his 
classic  purity  of  expression  rank  him  among  the  best 
masters  of  Castilian  prose.  The  like  great  qualities  are 
shown  in  his  Exposicidn  del  libro  de  Job,  drawn  up  by 
request  of  Santa  Teresa's  friend,  Sor  Ana  de  Jesus,  and 
in  his  rendering  of  and  commentary  on  the  Song  of 
Solomon,  which  he  holds  for  an  emblematic  eclogue  to 
be  interpreted  as  a  poetic  foreshadowing  of  the  Divine 
Espousal  of  the  Church  with  Christ.  A  book  still  held 
in  great  esteem  is  his  Perfecta  Casada  (The  Perfect 
Wife),  suggested,  it  may  be,  by  Luis  Vives'  Christian 
Woman,  and  composed  (1583)  for  the  benefit  of  Maria 
Varela  Osorio.  It  is  not,  indeed, 

"  That  hymn  for  which  the  whole  world  longs, 
A  worthy  hymn  in  woman 's praise." 

It  is  rather  a  singularly  brilliant  paraphrase  of  the  thirty- 
first  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  a  code  of  practical 
conduct  for  the  ideal  spouse,  which  may  be  read  with 
delight  even  by  those  who  think  the  friar's  doctrine 
reactionary. 

Great  in  prose,  Luis  de  Le6n  is  no  less  great  in  verse. 
With  San  Juan  de  la  Cruz  he  heads  the  list  of  Spain's 
lyrico-mystical  poets.  Yet  he  set  no  value  on  his 
poems,  which  he  regarded  as  mere  toys  of  childhood  : 
so  that  their  preservation  is  due  to  the  accident  of 
his  collecting  them  late  in  life  to  amuse  the  leisure 


LUIS  DE  LE6N  183 

of  the  Bishop  of  C6rdoba.  We  owe  their  publication 
to  Quevedo,  who  issued  them  in  1631  as  a  counterblast 
to  culteranismo.  Of  the  three  books  into  which  they  are 
divided,  two  consist  of  translations — from  Virgil,  Horace, 
Tibullus,  Euripides,  and  Pindar  ;  and  from  the  Psalms, 
the  Book  of  Job,  and  St.  Thomas  of  Aquin's  Pange 
lingua.  "  I  have  tried,"  says  Fray  Luis  of  his  sacred 
renderings,  "to  imitate  so  far  as  I  might  their  simple 
origin  and  antique  flavour,  full  of  sweetness  and  majesty, 
as  it  seems  to  me  ; "  and  he  succeeds  as  greatly  in  the 
primitive  unction  of  the  one  kind  as  in  the  faultless 
form  of  the  other.  Still  these  are  but  inspired  imita- 
tions, and  the  original  poet  is  to  be  sought  for  in  the 
first  book.  Some  idea  of  his  ode  entitled  Noche  Serena 
may  be  gathered  from  Mr.  Henry  Phillips'  version  of  the 
opening  stanzas  : — 

"  When  to  the  heavenly  dome  my  thoughts  take  flight, 
With  shimmering  stars  bedecked,  ablaze  with  light) 
Then  sink  my  eyes  down  to  the  groitnd, 
In  slumber  wrapped,  oblivion  bound, 
Enveloped  in  the  gloom  of  darkest  night. 

With  love  and  pain  assailed,  with  anxious  care, 
A  thousand  troubles  in  my  breast  appear, 

My  eyes  turn  to  a  flowing  rill, 

Sore  sorrow's  tearful  floods  distil, 
While  saddened,  mournful  words  my  woes  declare. 

Oh,  dwelling  fit  for  angels !  sacred  fane  / 
The  hallowed  siirine  where  youth  and  beauty  reign! 
Why  in  this  dungeon,  plunged  in  night, 
The  soul  thafs  born  for  Heaven's  delight 
Should  cruel  Fate  withiioldfrom  its  domain  ?  " 

In  his  Profeda  del  Tajo  (Prophecy  of  the  Tagus)  Luis  de 
Le6n  displays  a  virility  absent  from  his  other  pieces,  and 
' 


1 84  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

the  impetuosity  of  the  verse  matches  the  speed  which 
he  attributes  to  the  Saracenic  invaders  advancing  to 
the  overthrow  of  Roderic ;  and,  if  he  still  abide  by  his 
Horatian  model,  he  introduces  an  individual  treatment, 
a  characteristic  melody  of  his  own  invention.  A  famous 
devout  song,  A  Cristo  Crucifijado  (To  Christ  Crucified), 
appears  in  all  editions  of  Fray  Luis ;  but  as  its  authen- 
ticity is  disputed — some  ascribing  it  to  Miguel  Sanchez 
— its  quotation  must  be  foregone  here.  The  ode  Al 
Apartamiento  (To  Retirement)  exhibits  the  contemplative 
vein  which  distinguishes  the  singer,  and,  as  in  the  Ode 
to  Salinas,  seems  an  early  anticipation  of  Wordsworth's 
note  of  serene  simplicity.  Luis  de  Le6n  is  not  splendid 
in  metrical  resource,  and  his  adherence  to  tradition, 
his  indifference  to  his  fame,  his  ecclesiastical  estate,  all 
tend  to  narrow  his  range  of  subject ;  yet,  within  the 
limits  marked  out  for  him,  he  is  as  great  an  artist  and 
as  rich  a  voice  as  Spain  can  show. 

In  the  same  year  (1631)  that  Quevedo  issued  Luis  de 
Le6n's  verses,  he  also  published  an  exceedingly  small 
volume  of  poems  which  he  ascribed  to  a  Bachelor  named 
FRANCISCO  DE  LA  TORRE  (1534-?  1594).  From  this  arose 
a  strange  case  of  mistaken  identity.  Quevedo's  own 
account  of  the  matter  is  simple :  he  alleges  that  he  found 
the  poems — "  by  good  luck  and  for  the  greater  glory  of 
Spain" — in  the  shop  of  a  bookseller,  who  sold  them 
cheap.  It  appears  that  the  Portuguese,  Juan  de  Almeida, 
Senhor  de  Couto  de  Avintes,  saw  them  soon  after  Torre's 
death,  that  he  applied  for  leave  to  print  them,  and  that 
the  official  licence  was  signed  by  the  author  of  La 
Araucana,  Ercilla  y  Zuftiga,  who  died  in  1595.  For 
some  reason  Almeida's  purpose  miscarried,  and,  when 
Quevedo  found  the  manuscript  in  1629,  Torre  was  gene- 


TORRE  AND  QUEVEDO  185 

rally  forgotten.  Quevedo  solved  the  difficulty  out  of 
hand  in  the  high  editorial  manner,  evolved  the  facts 
from  his  inner  consciousness,  and  assured  his  readers 
that  the  author  of  the  poems  was  the  Francisco  de  la 
Torre  who  wrote  the  Vision  deleitablel- 

Ticknor  lays  it  down  that  "no  suspicion  seems  to 
have  been  whispered,  either  at  the  moment  of  their 
first  publication,  or  for  a  long  time  afterwards,"  of  the 
correctness  of  this  attribution  ;  and  he  implies  that  the 
first  doubter  was  Luis  Jose  Velazquez,  Marques  de 
Valdeflores,  who,  when  he  reprinted  the  book  in  1753, 
started  the  theory  that  the  poems  were  Quevedo's  own. 
This  is  not  so.  Quevedo's  mistake  was  pointed  out  by 
Manuel  de  Faria  y  Sousa  in  his  commentary  to  the 
LusiadaSj  printed  at  Madrid  in  1639.  That  Quevedo 
should  make  a  Bachelor  of  a  man  who  had  no  uni- 
versity degree,  that  he  should  call  the  writer  of  the 
Vision  deleitable  Francisco  when  in  truth  his  name  was 
Alfonso,  were  trifles  :  that  he  should  antedate  his  author 
by  nearly  two  centuries — this  was  a  serious  matter, 
and  Faria  y  Sousa  took  pains  to  make  him  realise  it. 
It  must  have  added  to  the  editor's  chagrin  to  learn  that 
Torre  had  been  friendly  with  Lope  de  Vega,  who  could 
have  given  accurate  information  about  him  ;  but  Lope 
and  Quevedo  were  not  on  speaking  terms,  owing  to 
the  mischief-making  of  the  former's  parasite,  Perez  de 
Montalban.  Quevedo  had  made  no  approach  to  Lope ; 
Lope  saw  the  blunder,  smiled,  and  said  nothing  in 
public.  Through  Pe"rez  de  Montalban  the  facts  reached 
Faria  y  Sousa,  who  exulted  over  a  mistake  which  was, 
indeed,  unpardonable.  The  discomfiture  was  complete  : 
for  the  first  and  last  time  in  his  life  Quevedo  was  dumb 

1  The  Christian  name  of  the  author  of  the  Visi6n  ddeiiable  was  Alfonso. 


1 86  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

before  an  enemy.  Meanwhile,  Velazquez'  theory  has 
found  some  favour  with  L6pez  Sedano  and  with  many 
foreign  critics :  as,  for  example,  Ticknor. 

What  we  know  of  Francisco  de  la  Torre  is  based 
upon  the  researches  of  Quevedo's  learned  editor,  Aure- 
liano  Ferndndez-Guerra  y  Orbe.1  A  native  of  Torre- 
laguna,  he  matriculated  at  Alcala  de  Henares  in  1556, 
fell  in  love  with  the  " Fills  rigurosa"  whom  he  sings, 
served  with  Carlos  Quinto  in  the  Italian  campaigns, 
returned  to  find  Filis  married  to  an  elderly  Toledan 
millionaire,  remained  constant  to  his  (more  or  less) 
platonic  flame,  and  ended  by  taking  orders  in  his 
despair.  The  unadorned  simplicity  of  his  manner  is  at 
the  remotest  pole  from  Quevedo's  frosty  brilliancy.  No 
small  proportion  of  his  sonnets  is  translated  from  the 
Italian.  Thus,  where  Benedetto  Varchi  writes  "  Questa 
e,  Tirsi,  quel  fonte  in  cut  solea"  Torre  follows  close  with 
" Jista  es,  Tirsi,  la  fuente  do  solia]"  and  when  Giovanni 
Battista  Amalteo  celebrates  "  La  viva  neve  e  le  vermiglie 
rose"  the  Spaniard  echoes  back  " La  blanca  nieve  y  la 
purpiirea  rosa"  Schelling  finds  the  light  fantastic  rap- 
ture of  the  Elizabethan  lover  expressed  to  perfection  in 
the  eighty-first  of  Spenser's  Amoretti :  line  for  line,  and 
almost  word  for  word,  Torre's  twenty-third  sonnet  is 
identical,  and,  when  we  at  length  possess  a  critical 
edition  of  Spenser,  it  will  surely  prove  that  both  poems 
derive  from  a  common  Italian  source.  Such  examples 
are  numerous,  and  are  worth  noting  as  germane  to 
the  general  question.  No  man  in  Europe  was  more 
original  than  Quevedo,  none  less  disposed  to  lean  on 

1  See  the  second  volume  (pp.  79-104)  of  the  Discursos  leidos  en  las  re- 
cepcionts  fiiblicas  que  ha  celebrado  desde  1847  la  Real  Academia  Espafiola 
(Madrid,  1861). 


FIGUEROA  187 

Italy.  To  conceive  that  he  should  seek  to  reform 
culteranismo  by  translating  from  Italians  of  yesterday, 
or  to  suppose  that  he  knowingly  passed  as  original 
work  imitations  made  by  a  man  who  —  ex  hypothesi 
— died  before  his  models  were  born,  is  to  believe 
Quevedo  a  clumsy  trickster.  That  conclusion  is  un- 
tenable ;  and  Torre  deserves  all  credit  for  his  graceful 
renderings,  as  for  his  more  original  poems — gallant, 
tender,  and  sentimental.  He  is  one  of  the  earliest 
Spanish  poets  to  choose  simple,  natural  themes — the 
ivy  fallen  to  the  ground,  the  widowed  song-bird,  the 
wounded  hind,  the  charms  of  landscape  and  the 
enchantment  of  the  spring.  A  smaller  replica  of 
Garcilaso,  with  a  vision  and  personality  of  his  own  :  so 
Francisco  de  la  Torre  appears  in  the  perspective  of 
Castilian  song. 

An  allied  poet  of  the  Salamancan  school  is  Torre's 
friend,  FRANCISCO  DE  FIGUEROA  (1536-?  1620),  a  native 
of  Alcala  de  Henares,  whom  his  townsman  Cervantes 
introduces  in  the  pastoral  Galatea  under  the  name  of 
Tirsi.  Little  is  recorded  of  his  life  save  that  he  served 
as  a  soldier  in  Italy,  that  he  studied  at  Rome,  Bologna, 
Siena,  and  perhaps  Naples,  that  the  Italians  called  him  the 
Divino  (the  title  was  sometimes  cheaply  given),  and  that 
some  even  ranked  him  next  to  Petrarch.  He  returned 
to  Alcala,  where  he  married  "  nobly,"  as  we  are  told ; 
and  he  is  found  travelling  with  the  Duque  de  Terranova 
in  the  Low  Countries  about  1597.  On  his  deathbed 
he  bethought  him  of  Virgil's  example,  and  ordered 
that  all  his  poems  should  be  burned  ;  those  that 
escaped  were  published  at  Lisbon  in  1626  by  the 
historian  Luis  Tribaldos  de  Toledo,  who  reports  what 
little  we  know  concerning  the  writer.  That  he  versi- 


1 88  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

fied  much  in  Italian  appears  from  Juan  Verzosa's 
evidence  : — 

"El lingua perges  alterna pangere  versus." 

And  a  vestige  of  the  youthful  practice  is  preserved  in 
the  elegy  to  Juan  de  Mendoza  y  Luna,  where  one 
Spanish  line  and  two  Italian  lines  compose  each  tercet. 
One  admirable  sonnet  is  that  written  on  the  death  of 
the  poet's  son,  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega  el  Mozo,  who,  like 
his  famous  father,  fell  in  battle.  Figueroa's  bent  is 
towards  the  pastoral ;  he  sings  of  sweet  repose,  of  love's 
costly  glory,  of  Tirsi's  pangs,  of  Fileno's  passion  realised, 
and  of  ingrata  Fili.  His  points  of  resemblance  with 
Torre  are  many  ;  but  his  talent  is  more  original,  his 
mood  more  melancholy,  his  taste  finer,  his  diction  more 
exquisite.  He  ranks  so  high  among  his  country's 
singers,  it  is  not  incredible  that  he  might  take  his  stand 
with  the  greatest  if  we  possessed  all  his  poems,  instead 
of  a  few  numbers  saved  from  fire.  And,  as  it  is,  he 
deserves  peculiar  praise  as  the  earliest  poet  who,  fol- 
lowing Boscan  and  Garcilaso,  mastered  the  blank  verse, 
\vhose  secrets  had  eluded  them.  He  avoids  the  subtle 
peril  of  the  assonant  ;  he  varies  the  mechanical  uni- 
formity of  beat  or  stress ;  and,  by  skilful  alternations 
of  his  caesura,  diversifies  his  rhythm  to  such  harmonic 
purpose  as  no  earlier  experimentalist  approaches.  At 
his  hands  the  most  formidable  of  Castilian  metres  is 
finally  vanquished,  and  the  verso  suelto  is  established 
on  an  equality  with  the  sonnet.  That  alone  ensures 
Figueroa's  fame  :  he  sets  the  standard  by  which  suc- 
cessors are  measured. 

Ariosto's  vigorous  epical  manner  is  faintly  suggested 
in  twelve  cantos  of  the  Angelica,  by  a  Seville  doctor,  Luis 


BARAHONA— RUFO  189 

BARAHONA  DE  SOTO  (fl.  1586).  Lope  de  Vega,  in  the 
Laurel  de  Afolo,  praises 

"  The  doctor  admirable 
Whose  page  of  gold 
The  story  of  Medora  told," 

and  all  contemporaries,  from  Diego  Hurtado  de  Mendoza 
downwards,  swell  the  chorus  of  applause.  The  priest 
who  sacked  Don  Quixote's  library  softened  at  sight  of 
Barahona's  book,  which  he  calls  by  its  popular  title, 
the  Ldgrimas  de  Angelica  (Tears  of  Angelica) : — "  I  should 
shed  tears  myself  were  such  a  book  burned,  for  its 
author  is  one  of  the  best  poets,  not  merely  in  Spain, 
but  in  all  the  world."  Cervantes  was  far  from  strong 
in  criticism,  and  he  proves  it  in  this  case.  The  Angelica, 
which  purports  to  continue  the  story  of  Orlando  Furioso 
— itself  a  continuation  of  the  Orlando  Innamorato — looks 
mean  beside  its  great  original.  Yet,  though  Barahona 
fails  in  epic  narrative,  his  lyrical  poems,  given  in  Espinosa's 
Flores  de  poetas  ilustres,  are  full  of  grace  and  melody. 

The  epic's  fascination  also  seduced  the  C6rdoban, 
JUAN  RUFO  GUTIERREZ.  We  know  the  date  of  neither 
his  birth  nor  his  death,  but  he  must  have  lived  long  if 
his  collection  of  anecdotes,  entitled  Las  seiscientas  Apo- 
tegmas,  were  really  published  in  1548.  His  Austriada, 
printed  in  1584,  takes  Don  Juan  de  Austria  for  its  hero, 
and  contains  some  good  descriptive  stanzas ;  but  Rufo's 
invention  finds  no  scope  in  dealing  with  contemporary 
matters,  and  what  might  have  been  a  useful  chronicle  is 
distorted  to  a  tedious  poem.  Great  part  of  the  Austriada 
is  but  a  rhymed  version  of  Mendoza's  Guerra  de  Granada, 
which  Rufo  must  have  seen  in  manuscript.  When, 
leaving  Ariosto  in  peace,  he  becomes  himself,  as  in  the 


1 90  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

verses  at  the  end  of  the  Apotegmas,  he  gives  forth  a 
natural  old-world  note,  reminiscent  of  earlier  models 
than  Boscdn  and  Garcilaso.  Since  Luis  de  Zapata 
(1523-?  1600)  wrote  an  epic  history  of  the  Emperor, 
the  Carlos  famoso,  he  must  have  read  it ;  and  it  is 
possible  that  Cervantes  (who  delighted  in  it)  was  familiar 
with  its  fifty  cantos,  its  forty  thousand  lines.  It  is 
more  than  can  be  said  of  any  later  reader.  Zapata 
wasted  thirteen  years  upon  his  epic,  and  witnessed  its 
failure ;  but  he  was  undismayed,  and  lived  to  maltreat 
Horace — it  sounds  incredible — beyond  all  expectation. 
It  is  another  instance  of  a  mistaken  calling.  The  writer 
knew  his  facts,  and  had  a  touch  of  the  historic  spirit. 
Yet  he  could  not  be  content  with  prose  and  history. 

A  nearer  approach  to  the  right  epical  poem  is  the 
Araucana  of  ALONSO  DE  ERCILLA  Y  ZUNIGA  (1533-95), 
who  appeared  as  Felipe  II.'s  page  at  his  wedding  with 
Mary  Tudor  in  Winchester  Cathedral.  From  England 
he  sailed  for  Chile  in  1554,  to  serve  against  the  Arau- 
canos,  who  had  risen  in  revolt ;  and  in  seven  pitched 
battles,  not  to  speak  of  innumerable  small  engagements, 
he  greatly  distinguished  himself.  His  career  was  ruined 
by  a  quarrel  with  a  brother-officer  named  Juan  de 
Pineda ;  he  was  judged  to  be  in  fault,  was  condemned 
to  death,  and  actually  mounted  the  scaffold.  At  the 
last  moment  the  sentence  was  commuted  to  exile  at 
Callao,  whence  Ercilla  returned  to  Europe  in  1562. 
With  him  he  brought  the  first  fifteen  cantos  of  his 
poem,  written  by  the  camp-fire  on  stray  scraps  of 
paper,  leather,  and  skin.  The  first  book  ever  printed 
in  America  was,  as  we  learn  from  Seflor  Icazbalceta, 
Juan  de  Zumdrraga's  Breve  y  compendiosa  Doctrina 
Cristiana.  The  first  literary  work  of  real  merit  com- 


ERCILLA  191 

posed  in  either  American  continent  was  Ercilla's 
Araucana.  It  was  published  at  Madrid  in  1569 ;  and 
continuations,  amounting  to  thirty-seven  cantos  in  all, 
followed  in  1578  and  1590.  Ercilla  never  forgave  what 
he  thought  the  injustice  of  his  general,  Garcia  Hurtado 
de  Mendoza,  Marques  de  Canete,  and  carefully  omits 
his  name  throughout  the  Araucana.  The  omission  cost 
him  dear,  for  he  was  never  employed  again. 

His  is  an  exceeding  stately  poem  on  the  Chilian 
revolt ;  but  epic  it  is  not,  whether  in  spirit  or  design, 
whether  in  form  or  effect.  In  the  Essay  Prefatory 
to  the  Henriade,  Voltaire  condescends  to  praise  the 
Araucana,  the  name  of  which  has  thus  become  familiar 
to  many ;  and,  though  he  was  probably  writing  at 
second  hand,  he  is  justified  in  extolling  the  really 
noble  speech  which  Ercilla  gives  to  the  aged  chief, 
Colocolo.  It  is  precisely  in  declamatory  eloquence  that 
Ercilla  shines.  His  technical  craftsmanship  is  sound, 
his  spirit  admirable,  his  diction  beyond  reproach,  or 
nearly  so  ;  and  yet  his  work,  as  a  whole,  fails  to  im- 
press. Men  remember  isolated  lines,  a  stanza  here  and 
there ;  but  the  general  effect  is  blurred.  To  speak 
truly,  Ercilla  had  the  orator's  temperament,  not  the 
poet's.  At  his  worst  he  is  debating  in  rhyme,  at  his 
best  he  is  writing  poetic  history  ;  and,  though  he  has 
an  eye  for  situation,  an  instinct  for  the  picturesque,  the 
historian  in  him  vanquishes  the  poet.  He  himself  was 
vaguely  conscious  of  something  lacking,  and  he  strove 
to  make  it  good  by  means  of  mythological  episodes, 
visions  by  Bellona,  magic  foreshadowings  of  victory, 
digressions  defending  Dido  from  Virgil's  scandalous 
tattle.  But,  since  the  secret  of  the  epic  lies  not  in 
machinery,  this  attempt  at  reform  failed.  Ercilla's  first 


192  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

part  remains  his  best,  and  is  still  interesting  for  its 
martial  eloquence,  and  valuable  as  a  picture  of  heroic 
•barbarism  rendered  by  an  artist  in  ottava  rima  who  was 
:also  a  vigilant  observer  and  a  magnanimous  foe.  His 
•omission  of  his  commander's  name  was  made  good  by 
<4  copious  Chilian  poet,  Pedro  de  Ona,  in  his  Arauco 
domado  (1596),  which  closed  with  the  capture  of  "  Richerte 
Aquines "  (as  who  should  say  Richard  Hawkins) ;  and, 
in  the  following  year,  Diego  de  Santisteban  y  Osorio 
added  a  fourth  and  fifth  part  to  the  original  Araucana. 
Neither  imitation  is  of  real  poetic  worth,  and,  as  versi- 
fied history,  they  are  inferior  to  the  Elegias  de  Varones 
ilustres  de  Indias  of  Juan  de  Castellanos  (?  1510-?  1590), 
a  priest  who  in  youth  had  served  in  America,  and 
who  rhymed  his  reminiscences  with  a  conscientious 
regard  for  fact  more  laudable  in  a  chronicler  than  a 
poet. 

But  we  turn  from  these  elaborate  historical  failures 
to  religious  work  of  real  beauty,  and  the  first  that 
offers  itself  is  the  famous  sonnet  "To  Christ  Cruci- 
fied," familiar  to  English  readers  in  a  free  version 
ascribed  to  Dryden  : — 


"  O  God,  Thou  art  the  object  of  my  love, 
Not  for  the  hopes  of  endless  joys  above, 
Nor  for  the  fear  of  endless  pains  below 
Which  those  -who  love  Thee  not  must  undergo  : 
For  me,  and  such  as  me,  Thou  once  didst  bear 
The  ignominious  cross,  the  nails,  the  spear, 
A  thorny  crown  transpierced  Thy  sacred  brow, 
IVhat  bloody  sweats  from  every  member  flow  ! 
For  me,  in  torture  Thou  resign* st  Thy  breath, 
Nailed  to  the  cross,  and  sav'dst  me  by  Thy  death  : 
Say,  can  these  sufferings  fail  my  heart  to  move? 
What  but  Thyself  can  now  deserve  my  love? 


SANTA  TERESA  193 

Such  as  then  was  and  is  Thy  love  to  me, 
Such  is,  and  shall  be  still,  my  love  to  Thee. 
Thy  love,  O  Jesus,  may  I  ever  sing, 
O  God  of  love,  kind  Parent,  dearest  King." 

The  authorship  is  referred  to  Ignacio  Loyola,  to  Fran- 
cisco Xavier,  to  Pedro  de  los  Reyes,  and  to  the  Seraphic 
Mother,  SANTA  TERESA  DE  JESUS,  whose  name  in  the 
world  was  Teresa  de  Cepeda  y  Ahumada  (1515-82). 
None  of  these  attributions  can  be  sustained,  and  No  me 
mueve,  mi  Dios,  para  quererte  must  be  classed  as  anony- 
mous.1 Yet  its  fervour  and  unction  are  such  as  to  suggest 
its  ascription  to  the  Saint  of  the  Flaming  Heart.  Santa 
Teresa  is  not  only  a  glorious  saint  and  a  splendid  figure 
in  the  annals  of  religious  thought :  she  ranks  as  a  miracle 
of  genius,  as,  perhaps,  the  greatest  woman  who  ever 
handled  pen,  the  single  one  of  all  her  sex  who  stands 
beside  the  world's  most  perfect  masters.  Macaulay  has 
noted,  in  a  famous  essay,  that  Protestantism  has  gained 
not  an  inch  of  ground  since  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Ignacio  Loyola  and  Santa  Teresa  are  the  life 
and  brain  of  the  Catholic  reaction  :  the  former  is  a  great 
party  chief,  the  latter  belongs  to  mankind. 

Her  life  in  all  its  details  may  be  read  in  Mrs.  Cunning- 
hame  Graham's  minute  and  able  study.  Here  it  must 
suffice  to  note  that  she  sallied  forth  to  seek  martyrdom  at 
the  age  of  seven,  that  she  entered  literature  as  the  writer 
of  a  chivalresque  romance,  and  that  in  her  sixteenth  year 
she  made  her  profession  as  a  nun  in  the  Carmelite  con- 
vent of  her  native  town,  Avila.  Years  of  spiritual  aridity, 
of  ill-health,  weighed  her  down,  aged  her  prematurely. 
But  nothing  could  abate  her  natural  force  ;  and  from 

1  A  very  able  discussion  of  these  ascriptions  is  presented  by  M.  Foulch^- 
Delbosc  in  the  Revue  hispanique  (1895),  vo'-  "•  PP-  120-45. 


I94  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

1558  to  the  day  of  her  death  she  marches  from  one 
victory  to  another,  careless  of  pain,  misunderstanding, 
misery,  and  persecution,  a  wonder  of  valour  and  devotion. 

"  Scarce  has  she  blood  enough  to  make 
A  guilty  sword  blush  for  her  sake; 
Yet  has  a  heart  dares  hope  to  prove 
How  much  less  strong  is  Death  than  Love  ,  .  . 
Love  toucKt  her  heart,  and  lo  !  it  beats 
High,  and  burns  with  such  brave  heats, 
Such  thirst  to  die,  as  dares  drink  up 
A  thousand  cold  deaths  in  one  cup." 

What  Crashaw  has  here  said  of  her  in  verse  he  repeats 
in  prose,  and  the  heading  of  his  poem  may  be  quoted  as 
a  concise  summary  of  her  achievement : — "  Foundress  of 
the  Reformation  of  the  Discalced  Carmelites,  both  men 
and  women  ;  a  woman  for  angelical  height  of  specula- 
tion, for  masculine  courage  of  performance  more  than 
a  woman ;  who,  yet  a  child,  outran  maturity,  and  durst 
plot  a  martyrdom."  And  all  the  world  has  read  with 
ever-growing  admiration  the  burning  words  of  Crashaw's 
"  sweet  incendiary,"  the  "  undaunted  daughter  of  desires," 
the  "  fair  sister  of  the  seraphim,"  "  the  moon  of  maiden 
stars." 

Simplicity  and  conciseness  are  Santa  Teresa's  dis- 
tinctive qualities,  and  the  marvel  is  where  she  acquired 
her  perfect  style.  Not,  we  may  be  sure,  in  the  numerous 
prose  of  Amadis.  Her  confessor,  the  worthy  Gracian, 
took  it  upon  him  to  "improve"  and  polish  her  periods; 
but,  in  a  fortunate  hour,  her  papers  came  into  the  hands 
of  Luis  de  Leon,  who  gave  them  to  the  press  in  1588. 
Himself  a  master  in  mysticism  and  literature,  he  per- 
ceived the  truth  embodied  later  in  Crashaw's  famous 
line  : — 

"  O  'tis  not  Spanish  but  'tis  Heaven  she  speaks." 


SANTA  TERESA  195 

Her  masterpiece  is  the  Castillo  interior,  of  which  Fray 
Luis  writes  : — "  Let  naught  be  blotted  out,  save  when 
she  herself  emended  :  which  was  seldom."  And  once 
more  he  commends  her  to  her  readers,  saying  : — "  She, 
who  had  seen  God  face  to  face,  now  reveals  Him  unto 
you."  With  all  her  sublimity,  her  enraptured  vision  of 
things  heavenly,  her  "  large  draughts  of  intellectual  day," 
Santa  Teresa  illustrates  the  combination  of  the  loftiest 
mysticism  with  the  finest  practical  sense,  and  her  style 
varies,  takes  ever  its  colour  from  its  subject.  Familiar 
and  maternal  in  her  letters,  enraptured  in  her  Conceptos 
del  Amor  de  Dios,  she  handles  with  equal  skill  the  trifles 
of  our  petty  lives  and — to  use  Luis  de  Le6n's  phrase 
— "the  highest  and  most  generous  philosophy  that  was 
ever  dreamed."  And  from  her  briefest  sentence  shines 
the  vigorous  soul  of  one  born  to  govern,  one  who 
governed  in  such  wise  that  a  helpless  Nuncio  denounced 
her  as  "restless,  disobedient,  contumacious,  an  inven- 
tress  of  new  doctrines  tricked  out  with  piety,  a  breaker 
of  the  cloister-rule,  a  despiser  of  the  apostolic  precept 
which  forbiddeth  a  woman  to  teach." 

Santa  Teresa  taught  because  she  must,  and  all  that  she 
wrote  was  written  by  compulsion,  under  orders  from  her 
superior.  She  could  never  have  understood  the  female 
novelist's  desire  for  publicity  ;  and,  had  she  realised  it, 
merry  as  her  humour  was,  she  would  scarcely  have 
smiled.  For  she  was,  both  by  descent  and  temperament, 
a  gentlewoman  —  de  sangre  muy  limpia,  as  she  writes 
more  than  once,  with  a  tinge  of  satisfaction  which 
shows  that  the  convent  discipline  had  not  stifled  her 
pride  of  race  any  more  than  it  had  quenched  her 
gaiety.  She  always  remembers  that  she  comes  from 
Castile,  and  the  fact  is  evidenced  in  her  writings,  with 


196  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

their  delicious  old-world  savour.  Boscan  and  Garcilaso 
might  influence  courtiers  and  learned  poets ;  but  they 
were  impotent  against  the  brave  Castilian  of  Sor  Teresa 
de  Jesus,  who  wields  her  instrument  with  incomparable 
mastery.  It  were  a  sin  to  attempt  a  rendering  of  her 
artless  songs,  with  their  resplendent  gleams  of  ecstasy 
and  passion.  But  some  idea  of  her  general  manner, 
when  untouched  by  the  inspiration  of  her  mystic 
nuptials,  may  be  gathered  from  a  passage  which  Froude 
has  Englished  : — 

"A  man  is  directed  to  make  a  garden  in  a  bad  soil 
overrun  with  sour  grasses.  The  Lord  of  the  land  roots 
out  the  weeds,  sows  seeds,  and  plants  herbs  and  fruit- 
trees.  The  gardener  must  then  care  for  them  and  water 
them,  that  they  may  thrive  and  blossom,  and  that  the 
Lord  may  find  pleasure  in  his  garden  and  come  to  visit 
it.  There  are  four  ways  in  which  the  watering  may  be 
done.  There  is  water  which  is  drawn  wearily  by  hand 
from  the  well.  There  is  water  drawn  by  the  ox-wheel, 
more  abundantly  and  with  greater  labour.  There  is 
water  brought  in  from  the  river,  which  will  saturate  the 
whole  ground ;  and,  last  and  best,  there  is  rain  from 
heaven.  Four  sorts  of  prayer  correspond  to  these.  The 
first  is  a  weary  effort  with  small  returns ;  the  well  may 
run  dry  :  the  gardener  then  must  weep.  The  second 
is  internal  prayer  and  meditation  upon  God  ;  the  trees 
will  then  show  leaves  and  flower-buds.  The  third  is 
love  of  God.  The  virtues  then  become  vigorous.  We 
converse  with  God  face  to  face.  The  flowers  open  and 
give  out  fragrance.  The  fourth  kind  cannot  be  described 
in  words.  Then  there  is  no  more  toil,  and  the  seasons 
no  longer  change  ;  flowers  are  always  blowing,  and  fruit 
ripens  perennially.  The  soul  enjoys  undoubting  certi- 


SANTA  TERESA  197 

tude  ;  the  faculties  work  without  effort  and  without 
consciousness ;  the  heart  loves  and  does  not  know  that 
it  loves  ;  the  mind  perceives,  yet  does  not  know  that  it 
perceives.  If  the  butterfly  pauses  to  say  to  itself  how 
prettily  it  is  flying,  the  shining  wings  fall  off,  and  it 
drops  and  dies.  The  life  of  the  spirit  is  not  our  life,  but 
the  life  of  God  within  us." 

And,  as  Santa  Teresa  excelled  in  spiritual  insight,  so 
she  has  the  sense  of  affairs.  Durtal,  in  M.  Joris-Karl 
Huysmans'  En  Route,  first  says  of  her  : — "  Sainte  Terese 
a  explore  plus  a  fond  que  tout  autre  les  regions  in- 
connues  de  1'ame ;  elle  en  est,  en  quelque  sorte,  la 
geographe;  elle  a  surtout  dress6  la  carte  de  ses  poles, 
marque  les  latitudes  contemplatives,  les  terres  interi- 
eures  du  ciel  humain."  And  he  shows  the  reverse  of 
the  medal : — "  Mais  quel  singulier  melange  elle  montre 
aussi,  d'une  mystique  ardente  et  d'une  femme  d'affaires 
froide ;  car,  enfin,  elle  est  a  double  fond ;  elle  est 
contemplative  hors  le  monde  et  elle  est  6galement  un 
homme  d'etat :  elle  est  le  Colbert  feminin  des  cloitres." 
The  key  to  Durtal's  difficulties  is  given  in  the  Abbe 
GeVresin's  remark,  that  the  perfect  balance  of  good  sense 
is  one  of  the  distinctive  signs  of  the  mystics.  In  Santa 
Teresa's  case  the  sign  is  present.  An  uninquiring  world 
may  choose  to  think  of  her  as  a  fanatic  in  vapours  and 
in  ecstasies.  Yet  it  is  she  who  writes,  in  the  Camino  de 
Perfection : — "  I  would  not  have  my  daughters  be,  or 
seem  to  be,  women  in  anything,  but  brave  men."  It 
is  she  who  holds  that  "  of  revelations  no  account  should 
be  made "  ;  who  calls  the  usual  convent  life  "  a  short- 
cut to  hell"  ;  who  adds  that  "if  parents  took  my  advice, 
they  would  rather  marry  their  daughters  to  the  poorest 
of  men,  or  keep  them  at  home  under  their  own  eyes." 


I98  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Her  position  as  a  spiritual  force  is  as  unique  as  her 
place  in  literature.  It  is  certain  that  her  "own  dear 
books  "  were  nothing  to  her ;  that  she  regarded  litera- 
ture as  frivolity ;  and  no  one  questions  her  right  so  to 
regard  it.  But  the  world  also  is  entitled  to  its  judg- 
ment, which  is  expressed  in  different  ways.  Jeremy 
Taylor  cites  her  in  a  sermon  preached  at  the  opening 
of  the  Parliament  of  Ireland  (May  8,  1661).  Protestant 
England,  by  the  mouth  of  Froude,  compares  Santa 
Teresa  to  Cervantes.  Catholic  Spain  places  her  manu- 
script of  her  own  Life  beside  a  page  of  St.  Augustine's 
writing  in  the  Palace  of  the  Escorial. 

In  some  sense  we  may  almost  consider  the  Ecstatic 
Doctor,  SAN  JUAN  DE  LA  CRUZ  (1542-91),  as  one  of 
Santa  Teresa's  disciples.  He  changed  his  worldly  name 
of  Juan  de  Yepes  y  Alvarez  for  that  of  Juan  de  la  Cruz 
on  joining  the  Carmelite  order  in  1563.  Shortly  after- 
wards he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Santa  Teresa,  and, 
fired  by  her  enthusiasm,  he  undertook  to  carry  out  in 
monasteries  the  reforms  which  she  introduced  in  con- 
vents. In  his  Obras  espirituales  (1618)  mysticism  finds 
its  highest  expression.  There  are  moments  when  his 
prose  style  is  of  extreme  clearness  and  force,  but  in 
many  cases  he  soars  to  heights  where  the  sense  reels 
in  the  attempt  to  follow  him.  St.  John  of  the  Cross 
holds,  with  the  mystics  of  all  time,  with  Plotinus  and 
Bohme  and  Swedenborg,  that  "by  contemplation  man 
may  become  incorporated  with  the  Deity."  This  is  a 
hard  saying  for  some  of  us,  not  least  to  the  present 
writer,  and  it  were  idle,  in  the  circumstances,  to  attempt 
criticism  of  what  for  most  men  must  remain  a  mystery. 
Yet  in  his  verse  one  seizes  the  sense  more  easily ;  and 
his  high,  amorous  music  has  an  individual  melody  of 


SAN  JUAN   DE  LA  CRUZ  199 

spiritual  ravishment,  of  daring  abandonment,  which  is 
not  all  lost  in  Mr.  David  Lewis'  unrhymed  version  of 
the  Noche  oscura  del  Alma  (Dark  Night  of  the  Soul)  : — 

"  In  an  obscure  night. 
With  anxious  love  inflamed, 
O  happy  lot! 
Forth  unobserved  I  "went, 
My  house  being  now  at  rest.  •  -  • 

In  that  happy  night, 

In  secret,  seen  of  none, 

Seeing  nought  but  myself, 

Without  other  light  or  guide 

Save  that  which  in  my  heart  was  burning. 

That  light  guided  me 

More  surely  than  the  noonday  sun 

To  the  place  where  he  was  waiting  forme 

Whom  I  knew  well, 

And  none  but  he  appeared. 

O  guiding  night ! 

O  night  more  lovely  than  the  dawn  I 

0  night  that  hast  united 
The  lover  with  his  beloved 
And  charged  her  with  her  love. 

On  my  flowery  bosom, 
Kept  whole  for  him  alone, 
He  reposed  and  slept : 

1  kept  him,  and  the  waving 
Of  the  cedars  fanned  him. 

Then  his  hair  floated  in  the  breexe 
That  blew  from  the  turret; 
He  struck  me  on  the  neck 
With  his  gentle  hand, 
And  all  sensation  left  me. 
14 


200  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

/  continued  in  oblivion  lost, 
My  head  was  resting  on  my  love; 
I  fainted  at  last  abandoned, 
And,  amid  the  lilies  forgotten, 
Threw  all  my  cares  away." 

St.  John  of  the  Cross  has  absorbed  the  mystic  essence 
of  the  Song  of  Solomon,  and  he  introduces  infinite  new 
harmonies  in  his  re-setting  of  the  ancient  melody.  The 
worst  that  criticism  can  allege  against  him  is  that  he 
dwells  on  the  very  frontier  line  of  sense,  in  a  twilight 
where  music  takes  the  place  of  meaning,  and  words  are 
but  vague  symbols  of  inexpressible  thoughts,  intolerable 
raptures,  too  subtly  sensuous  for  transcription.  The 
Unknown  Eros,  a  volume  of  odes,  mainly  mystical  and 
Catholic,  by  Coventry  Patmore,  which  has  had  so  con- 
siderable an  influence  on  recent  English  writers,  was  a 
deliberate  attempt  to  transfer  to  our  poetry  the  methods 
of  St.  John  of  the  Cross,  whose  influence  grows  ever 
deeper  with  time. 

The  Dominican  monk  whose  family  name  was  Sarria, 
but  who  is  only  known  from  his  birthplace  as  Luis 
DE  GRANADA  (1504-88),  is  usually  accounted  a  mystic 
writer,  though  he  is  vastly  less  contemplative,  more 
didactic  and  practical,  than  San  Juan  de  la  Cruz.  He  is 
best  known  by  his  Guia  de  Pecadores,  which  Regnier 
made  the  favourite  reading  of  Macette,  and  which 
Gorgibus  recommends  to  Celie  in  Sganarelle  :- 


"  La  Guide  des  pe"cheurs  est  encore  un  bon  livre  : 
Cest  la  qu'en  peu  de  temps  on  apprend  a  bien  vivre." 


\  his 


Unluckily  for  Granada,  his  Guia  de  Pecadores  and 
Tratado  de  la  Oracion  y  Meditacidn  were  placed  on  the 
Index,  chiefly  at  the  instigation  of  that  hammer  of 
heretics,  Melchor  Cano,  the  famous  theologian  of  the 


LUIS  DE  GRANADA  201 

Council  of  Trent.  Certain  changes  were  made  in  the 
text,  and  the  books  were  reprinted  in  their  amended 
form  ;  but  the  suspicion  of  iluminismo  long  hung  over 
Granada,  whose  last  years  were  troubled  by  his  rash 
simplicity  in  certifying  as  true  the  sham  stigmata  of 
a  Portuguese  nun,  Sor  Maria  de  la  Visitaci6n.  The 
story  that  Granada  was  persecuted  by  the  Inquisition 
is  imaginary. 

His  books  have  still  an  immense  vogue.  His  sincerity, 
learning,  and  fervour  are  admirable,  and  his  forty  years 
spent  between  confessional  and  pulpit  gave  him  a  rare 
knowledge  of  human  weakness  and  a  mastery  of  eloquent 
appeal.  He  is  not  declamatory  in  the  worst  sense, 
though  he  bears  the  marks  of  his  training.  He  sins 
by  abuse  of  oratorical  antithesis,  by  repetition,  by  a 
certain  mechanical  see-saw  of  the  sentence  common  to 
those  who  harangue  multitudes.  Still,  the  sweetness  of 
his  nature  so  flows  over  in  his  words  that  didacticism 
becomes  persuasive  even  when  he  argues  against  our 
strongest  prepossessions.  It  may  interest  to  quote  a 
passage  from  the  translation  made  by  that  Francis  Meres 
whose  Palladis  Tamia  contains  the  earliest  reference  to 
Shakespeare's  "  sugared  sonnets  "  :— 

"This  desire  which  doth  hold  many  so  resolutely  to 
their  studies,  and  this  love  of  science  and  knowledge 
under  pretence  to  help  others,  is  too  much  and  super- 
fluous. I  call  it  a  love  too  much  and  desire  superfluous ; 
for  when  it  is  moderate  and  according  to  reason,  it  is  not 
a  temptation,  but  a  laudable  virtue  and  a  very  profitable 
exercise  which  is  commended  in  all  kind  of  men,  but 
especially  in  young  men  who  do  exercise  their  youth  in 
that  study,  for  by  it  they  eschew  many  vices  and  learn 
that  whereby  they  will  counsel  themselves  and  others. 


202  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

But  unless  it  be  moderately  used  it  hurteth  devotion.  .  .  . 
There  be  some  that  would  know  for  this  end  only,  that 
they  might  know — and  it  is  foolish  curiosity.  There  be 
some  that  would  know,  that  they  might  be  known — and  it 
is  foolish  vanity ;  and  there  be  some  that  would  know, 
that  they  might  sell  their  knowledge  for  money  or  for 
honours — and  it  is  filthy  lucre.  There  be  also  some  that 
desire  to  know,  that  they  may  edify — and  it  is  charity. 
And  there  are  some  that  would  know,  that  they  may  be 
edified — and  it  is  wisdom.  All  these  ends  may  move  the 
desire,  and,  in  choice  of  these,  a  man  is  often  deceived, 
when  he  considereth  not  which  ought  especially  to  move ; 
and  this  error  is  very  dangerous." 

This  distrust  of  profane  letters  is  yet  more  marked 
in  the  Augustinian,  PEDRO  MAL6N  DE  CHAIDE  of  Cas- 
cante  (1530-?  1590),  who  compares  the  "frivolous  love- 
books"  of  Boscdn,  Garcilaso,  and  Montemor  and  the 
"fabulous  tales  and  lies"  of  chivalresque  romance  to  a 
knife  in  a  madman's  hand.  His  practice  clashes  with 
his  theory,  for  his  Conversion  de  la  Magdalena,  written  for 
Beatriz  Cerdan,  is  learned  to  the  verge  of  pedantry,  and 
his  elaborate  periods  betray  the  imitation  of  models 
which  he  professed  to  abhor.  More  ascetic  than  mystic, 
Mal6n  de  Chaide  lacks  the  patrician  ease,  the  tolerant 
spirit  of  Juan  de  Avila,  Granada,  and  Leon ;  but  his 
austere  doctrine  and  sumptuous  colouring  have  ensured 
him  permanent  popularity.  His  admirable  verse  para- 
phrases of  the  Song  of  Solomon  have  much  of  the 
unction,  without  the  sensuous  exaltation,  of  Juan  de 
la  Cruz.  A  better  representative  of  pure  mysticism  is 
the  Extremaduran  Carmelite,  JUAN  DE  LOS  ANGELES 
(fl.  1595),  whose  Triumphos  del  Amor  de  Dios  is  a  pro- 
found psychological  study,  written  under  the  influence 


ARIAS  MONTANO  203 

of  Northern  thinkers,  and  not  less  remarkable  for  beauty 
of  expression  than  for  impassioned  insight.  With  him 
our  notice  of  the  Spanish  mystics  must  close.  It  is 
difficult  to  estimate  their  number  exactly ;  but  since  at 
least  three  thousand  survive  in  print,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  the  most  remain  unread.  A  breath  of  mysticism  is 
met  in  the  few  Castilian  verses  of  the  brilliant  humanist, 
BEXITO  ARIAS  MONTANO  (1527-98),  who  gave  up  to 
scholarship  and  theology  what  was  meant  for  poetry. 
His  achievement  in  the  two  former  fields  is  not  our 
concern  here,  but  it  pleases  to  denote  the  ample  inspi- 
ration and  the  lofty  simplicity  of  his  song,  which  is 
hidden  from  many  readers,  and  overlooked  even  by 
literary  historians,  in  Bohl  de  Faber's  Floresta  de  rimas 
antiguas. 

The  pastoral  novel,  like  the  chivalresque  romance, 
reaches  Spain  through  Portugal.  The  Italianised  Spaniard, 
Jacopo  Sannazaro,  had  invented  the  first  example  of  this 
kind  in  his  epoch-making  Arcadia  (1504)  ;  and  his  earliest 
follower  was  the  Portuguese,  Bernardim  Ribeiro  (?  1475- 
71524),  whose  Menina  e  mo$a  transplants  the  prose 
pastoral  to  the  Peninsula.  This  remarkable  book,  which 
derives  its  title  from  the  first  three  words  of  the  text,  is 
the  undoubted  model  of  the  first  Castilian  prose  pastoral, 
the  unfinished  Diana  Enamorada.  This  we  owe  to  the 
Portuguese,  JORGE  DE  MONTEM6R  (d.  1561),  whose  name 
is  hispaniolised  as  Montemayor.  There  is  nothing  strange 
in  this  usage  of  Castilian  by  a  Portuguese  writer.  We 
have  already  recorded  the  names  of  Gil  Vicente,  Sa  de 
Miranda,  and  Silvestre  among  those  of  Castilian  poets ; 
the  lyrics  and  comedies  of  Camoes,  the  Austriada  of 
Jeronimo  Corte  Real,  continue  a  tradition  which  begins 


204  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

as  early  as  the  General  Cancioneiro  of  Garcia  de  Resende 
(1516),  wherein  twenty-nine  Portuguese  poets  prefer 
Castilian  before  their  own  language.  A  Portuguese 
writer,  Innocencio  da  Silva,  has  gone  the  length  of 
asserting  that  Montemdr  wrote  nothing  but  Castilian. 
This  only  proves  that  Silva  had  not  read  the  Diana, 
which  contains  two  Portuguese  songs,  and  Portuguese 
prose  passages  spoken  by  the  shepherd,  Danteo,  and 
the  shepherdess,  Duarda.  Nor  is  Silva  alone  in  his 
bad  eminence ;  the  date  of  the  earliest  edition  of 
the  Diana  is  commonly  given  as  1542.  Yet,  as  it 
contains,  in  the  Canto  de  Orpheo,  an  allusion  to  the 
widowhood  of  the  Infanta  Juana  (1554),  it  must  be  later. 
The  time  of  publication  was  probably  1558-59,!  some 
four  or  five  years  after  the  printing  of  his  Cancionero 
at  Antwerp. 

Little  is  known  of  Montemdr's  life,  save  that  he  was  a 
musician  at  the  Spanish  court  in  1548.  He  accompanied 
the  Infanta  Juana  to  Lisbon  on  her  marriage  to  Dom 
Joao,  returning  to  Spain  in  1554,  when  he  is  thought  to 
have  visited  England  and  the  Low  Countries  in  Felipe 
II.'s  train.  He  was  murdered  in  1651,  apparently  as  the 
result  of  some  amour.  Faint  intimations  of  pastoralism 
are  found  in  such  early  chivalresque  novels  as  Florisel 
de  Niquea,  where  Florisel,  dressed  as  a  shepherd,  loves 
the  shepherdess,  Sylvia.  Ribeiro  had  introduced  his 
own  flame  in  Menina  e  moqa  in  the  person  of  Aonia, 
and  Montem6r  follows  with  Diana.  The  identification 
of  Aonia  with  the  Infanta  Beatriz,  and  with  King 
Manoel's  cousin,  Joana  de  Vilhena,  has  been  argued 
with  great  heat:  in  Montemor's  case  the  lady  is  said  to 

1  The  question  is  discussed  in  the  J?evue  hispanique  (1895),  v°l-  "•  PP- 
304-". 


MONTEM6R  20$ 

have  been  a  certain  Ana.  Her  surname  is  withheld  by 
the  discreet  Sepiilveda,  who  records  that  she  was  seen 
at  Valderas  by  Felipe  III.  and  his  queen  in  1603. 

In  all  pastoral  novels  there  is  a  family  likeness,  and 
Montemor  is  not  successful  in  avoiding  the  insipidity 
of  the  genre.  He  endeavours  to  lighten  the  monotony 
of  his  shepherds  by  borrowing  Sannazaro's  invention  of 
the  witch  whose  magic  draughts  work  miracles.  This 
wonder-worker  is  as  convenient  for  the  novelist  as  she 
is  tedious  for  the  reader,  who  is  forced  to  cry  out  with 
Don  Quixote's  Priest : — "  Let  all  that  refers  to  the  wise 
Felicia  and  the  enchanted  water  be  omitted."  The  bold 
Priest  would  further  drop  the  verses,  honouring  the 
book  for  its  prose,  and  for  being  the  first  of  its  class. 
Montemor  accepts  the  convention  by  making  his  shep- 
herds— Sireno,  Silvano,  and  the  rest — mouth  it  like 
grandiloquent  dukes  ;  but  the  style  is  correct,  and  pleas- 
ing in  its  grandiose  kind.  The  Diana's  vogue  was  im- 
mense :  Shakespeare  himself  based  the  Two  Gentlemen  of 
Verona  upon  the  episode  of  the  shepherdess  Felismena, 
which  he  had  probably  read  in  the  manuscript  of  Bar- 
tholomew Young,  whose  excellent  version,  although  not 
printed  until  1598,  was  finished  in  1583;  and  Sidney, 
whose  own  pastoral  is  redolent  of  Montemor,  has  given 
Sireno's  song  in  this  fashion  : — 

"  Of  this  high  grace  with  bliss  conjoined 

No  further  debt  on  me  is  laid, 
Since  that  is  self-same  metal  coin'd, 

Sweet  lady,  you  remain  u<  ell  paid. 
For,  if  my  place  give  me  great  pleasure, 
Having  before  me  Nature's  treasure, 
In  face  and  eyes  unmatched  being. 
You  have  the  same  in  my  hands,  seeing 
What  in  your  face  mine  eyes  do  measure. 


206  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

Nor  think  the  match  unevenly  made. 
That  of  those  beams  in  you  do  tarry  ; 

The  glass  to  you  but  gives  a  shade ; 
To  me  mine  eyes  the  true  shape  carry  : 

For  such  a  thought  most  highly  prized. 

Which  ever  hath  Love 's  yoke  despised. 
Better  than  one  captiv'dperceiveth^ 
Though  he  the  lively  form  receiveth, 

The  other  sees  it  but  disguised" 

Montem6r  closes  with  the  promise  of  a  sequel,  which 
never  appeared.  But,  as  his  popularity  continued,  pub- 
lishers printed  new  editions,  containing  the  story  of 
Abindarraez  and  Jarifa,  boldly  annexed  from  Villegas' 
Inventario,  which  was  licensed  so  early  as  1551.  The 
tempting  opportunity  was  seized  by  Alonso  Perez,  a 
Salamancan  doctor,  whose  second  Diana  (1564)  is  ex- 
tremel/dull,  despite  the  singular  boast  of  its  author  that 
it  contains  scarcely  anything  "not  stolen  or  imitated 
from  the  best  Latins  and  Italians."  Perez  alleges  that 
he  was  a  friend  of  Montemor's  ;  but,  as  that  was  his 
sole  qualification,  his  third  Diana — written,  though  "  not 
added  here,  to  avoid  making  too  large  a  volume  " — has 
fortunately  vanished.  In  this  same  year,  1564,  appeared 
Caspar  Gil  Polo's  Diana,  a  continuation  which,  says  Cer- 
vantes, should  be  guarded  "as  though  it  were  Apollo's" 
— the  praise  has  perplexed  readers  who  missed  the  pun 
on  the  author's  name.  The  merits  of  Polo's  sequel, 
excellent  in  matter  and  form,  were  recognised,  as  Pro- 
fessor Rennert  notes,  by  Jer6nimo  de  Texeda,  whose 
Diana  (1627)  is  a  plagiary  from  Polo.  Though  the 
contents  of  the  one  and  the  other  are  almost  identical, 
Ticknor,  considering  them  as  independent  works,  finds 
praise  for  the  earlier  book,  and  blame  for  the  later.  An 
odd,  mad  freak  is  the  versified  Diez  libros  de  Fortuna  de 


ZURITA  207 

Amor  (1573),  wherein  Frexano  and  Floricio  woo  For- 
tuna  and  Augustina  in  Arcadian  fashion.  Its  author,  the 
Sardinian  soldier,  Antonio  Lo  Frasso,  shares  with  Ave- 
llaneda  the  distinction  of  having  drawn  Cervantes'  fire — 
his  one  title  to  fame.  Artificiality  reaches  its  full  height 
in  the  Pastor  de  Filida  (1582)  of  Luis  Galvez  de  Mont- 
alvo,  who  presents  himself,  Silvestre,  and  Cervantes 
as  the  (Dresden)  shepherds  Siralvo,  Silvano,  and  Tirsi. 
Almost  every  Spanish  man  of  letters  attempted  a  pastoral, 
but  it  were  idle  to  compile  a  catalogue  of  works  by 
authors  whose  echoes  of  Montemor  are  merely  mechani- 
cal. The  occasion  of  much  ornate  prose,  the  pastoral 
lived  partly  because  there  was  naught  to  set  against  it, 
partly  because  born  men  of  action  found  pleasure  in 
literary  idealism  and  in  "old  Saturn's  reign  of  sugar- 
candy."  Its  unreality  doomed  it  to  death  when  Aleman 
and  others  took  to  working  the  realistic  vein  first 
struck  in  Lazarillo  de  Tormes.  Meanwhile  the  spec- 
tacle of  love-lorn  shepherds  contending  in  song  scan- 
dalised the  orthodox,  and  the  monk  Bartolome  Ponce 
produced  his  devout  parody,  the  Clara  Diana  d  lo 
divino  (1599)  in  the  same  edifying  spirit  that  moved 
Sebastian  de  Cordoba  (1577)  to  travesty  Boscan's  and 
Garcilaso's  works — d  lo  divino,  trasladadas  en  materias 
cristianas. 

Didactic  prose  is  practised  by  the  official  chronicler, 
JERONIMO  DE  ZURITA  (1512-80),  author  of  the  Anales 
de  la  Corona  de  Aragon,  six  folios  published  between 
1562  and  1580,  and  ending  with  the  death  of  Fernando. 
Zurita  is  not  a  great  literary  artist,  nor  an  historical 
portrait-painter.  Men's  actions  interest  him  less  than 
the  progress  of  constitutional  growth.  His  conception 
of  history,  to  give  an  illustration  from  English  literature, 


208  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

is  nearer  Freeman's  than  Froude's,  and  he  was  admirably 
placed  by  fortune.  Simancas  being  thrown  open  to  him, 
he  was  first  among  Spanish  historians  to  use  original 
documents,  first  to  complete  his  authorities  by  study 
in  foreign  archives,  first  to  perceive  that  travel  is  the 
complement  of  research.  Science  and  Zurita's  work 
gain  by  his  determination  to  abandon  the  old  plan  of 
beginning  with  Noah.  He  lacks  movement,  sympathy, 
and  picturesqueness ;  but  he  excels  all  predecessors  in 
scheme,  accuracy,  architectonics  —  qualities  which  have 
made  his  supersession  impossible.  Whatever  else  be 
read,  Zurita's  Anales  must  be  read  also.  His  con- 
temporary, AMBROSIO  DE  MORALES  (1513-91),  nephew 
of  PeYez  de  Oliva,  was  charged  to  continue  Ocampo's 
chronicle.  His  nomination  is  dated  1580.  His  authori- 
tative fragment,  the  result  of  ten  years'  labour,  combines 
eloquent  narrative  with  critical  instinct  in  such  wise  as  to 
suggest  that,  with  better  fortune,  he  might  have  matched 
Zurita. 

Hurtado  de  Mendoza  as  a  poet  belongs  to  Carlos 
Quinto's  period.  Even  if  he  be  not  the  author  of 
Lazarillo,  he  approves  himself  a  master  of  prose  in  his 
Guerra  de  Granada,  first  published  at  Lisbon  by  the 
editor  of  Figueroa's  poems,  Luis  Tribaldos  de  Toledo, 
in  1627.  Mendoza  wrote  his  story  of  the  Morisco  rising 
(1568-71)  in  the  Alpujarra  and  Ronda  ranges,  while  in 
exile  at  Granada.  On  July  22,  1568  (if  Fourquevaulx' 
testimony  be  exact),  a  quarrel  arose  between  Mendoza 
and  a  young  courtier,  Diego  de  Leiva.  The  old  soldier 
— he  was  sixty-four — disarmed  Leiva,  threw  his  dagger 
out  of  window,  and,  by  some  accounts,  sent  Leiva  after 
it.  This,  passing  in  the  royal  palace  at  Madrid,  was  flat 
lese  majesty  to  be  expiated  by  Mendoza's  exile.  To  this 


MENDOZA  209 

lucky  accident  we  owe  the  Guerra  de  Granada,  written  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  war. 

Mendoza  writes  for  the  pleasure  of  writing,  with  no 
polemical  or  didactic  purpose.  His  plain-speaking  con- 
cerning the  war,  and  the  part  played  in  it  by  great 
personages  whom  he  had  no  cause  to  love,  accounts 
for  the  tardy  publication  of  his  book,  which  should  be 
considered  as  a  confidential  state-paper  by  a  diplomatist 
of  genius.  Yet,  though  he  wrote  chiefly  to  pass  the  time, 
he  has  the  qualities  of  the  great  historian — knowledge, 
impartiality,  narrative  power,  condensation,  psychological 
insight,  dramatic  apprehension,  perspective  and  elo- 
quence. His  view  of  a  general  situation  is  always  just, 
and,  though  he  has  something  of  the  credulity  of  his 
time,  his  accuracy  of  detail  is  astonishing.  His  style  is 
a  thing  apart.  He  had  already  shown,  in  a  burlesque 
letter  addressed  to  Feliciano  de  Silva,  an  almost  unique 
capacity  for  reproducing  that  celebrity's  literary  manner. 
In  his  Guerra  de  Granada  he  repeats  the  performance 
with  more  serious  aim.  One  god  of  his  idolatry  is 
Sallust,  whose  terse  rhetoric  is  repeatedly  echoed  with 
unsurpassable  fidelity.  Another  model  is  Tacitus,  whose 
famous  description  of  Germanicus  finding  the  unburied 
corpses  of  Varus'  legions  is  annexed  by  Mendoza  in 
his  account  of  Arcos  and  his  troops  at  Calalm.  This  is 
neither  plagiarism  nor  unconscious  reminiscence  ;  it  is 
the  deliberate  effort  of  a  prose  connoisseur,  saturated  in 
antiquity,  to  impart  the  gloomy  splendour  of  the  Roman 
to  his  native  tongue.  To  say  that  Mendoza  succeeded 
were  too  much,  but  he  did  not  altogether  fail ;  and, 
despite  his  occasional  Latinised  construction,  his  Guerra 
de  Granada  lives  not  solely  as  a  brilliant  and  picturesque 
transcription.  It  is  also  a  masterly  example  of  idiomatic 


210  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

Castilian  prose,  published  without  the  writer's  last 
touches,  and,  as  is  plain,  from  mutilated  copies.1  Men- 
doza  may  not  be  a  great  historian  :  as  a  literary  artist 
he  is  extremely  great. 

1  See  two  very  able  studies  in  the  Revue  hispanique  (vol.  i.  pp.  101-65, 
and  vol.  ii.  pp.  208-303),  by  M.  Foulche-Delbosc,  whose  edition  of  the  Guerra 
de  Granada  is  now  printing. 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE  AGE  OF  LOPE  DE  VEGA 

1598-1621 

THE  death  of  Felipe  II.  in  1598  closes  an  epoch  in  the 
history  of  Castilian  letters.  Not  merely  has  the  Italian 
influence  triumphed  definitively  :  the  chivalresque 
romance  has  well-nigh  run  its  course  ;  while  mysti- 
cism and  the  pastoral  have  achieved  expression  and 
acceptance.  Moreover,  the  most  important  of  all  de- 
velopments is  the  establishment  of  the  stage  at  Madrid 
in  the  Teatro  de  la  Cruz  and  in  the  Teatro  del  Principe. 
There  is  evidence  to  prove  that  theatres  were  also  built 
at  Valencia,  at  Seville,  and  possibly  at  Granada.  Nor 
was  a  foreign  impulse  lacking.  Kyd's  Spanish  Tragedy 
records  the  invasion  of  England  by  Italian  actors  : — 

"  The  Italian  tragedians  were  so  sharp  of 'wit, 
That  in  one  hour's  meditation 
They  could  perform  anything  in  action." 

In  like  wise  the  famous  Alberto  Ganasa  and  his  Italian 
histrions  revealed  the  art  of  acting  to  the  Spains.  Thence- 
forth every  province  is  overrun  by  mummers,  as  may  be 
read  in  the  Viaje  entretenido  (1603)  of  Agustin  de  Rojas 
Villandrando,  who  denotes,  with  mock-solemn  precision, 
the  nine  professional  grades. 

There  was  the  solitary  stroller,  the  bululu,  tramping 


212  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

from  village  to  village,  declaiming  short  plays  to  small 
audiences,  called  together  by  the  sacristan,  the  barber, 
and  the  parish  priest,  who — pidiendo  limosna  en  un  som- 
brero—  passed  round  the  hat,  and  sped  the  vagabond 
with  a  slice  of  bread  and  a  cup  of  broth.  A  pair 
of  strollers  (such  as  Rojas  himself  and  his  colleague 
Ri'os)  was  styled  a  Plaque,  and  did  no  more  than  spout 
simple  entremeses  in  the  open.  The  cangarilla  was  on  a 
larger  scale,  numbering  three  or  four  actors,  who  gave 
Timoneda's  Oveja  Perdida,  or  some  comic  piece  wherein 
a  boy  played  the  woman's  part.  Five  men  and  a  woman 
made  up  the  carambaleo,  which  performed  in  farmhouses 
for  such  small  wages  as  a  loaf  of  bread,  a  bunch  of  grapes, 
a  stew  of  cabbage  ;  but  higher  fees  were  asked  in  larger 
villages — six  maravedfs,  a  piece  of  sausage,  a  roll  of  flax, 
and  what  not.  Though  "  a  spider  could  carry  "  its  pro- 
perties, says  Rojas,  yet  the  carambaleo  contrived  to  fill 
the  bill  with  a  set  piece,  or  two  autos,  or  four  entremeses. 
More  pretentious  was  the  garnacha,  with  its  six  men, 
its  "leading  lady,"  and  a  boy  who  played  the  ingenue. 
With  four  set  plays,  three  autos,  and  three  entremeses 
it  would  draw  a  whole  village  for  a  week.  A  large 
choice  of  pieces  was  within  the  means  of  the  seven  men, 
two  women,  and  a  boy  that  made  up  the  bojiganga, 
which  journeyed  from  town  to  town  on  horseback. 
Next  in  rank  came  the  fardndula,  the  stepping-stone 
to  the  lofty  compania  of  sixteen  players,  with  fourteen 
"supers,"  capable  of  producing  fifty  pieces  at  short 
notice.  To  such  a  troupe,  no  doubt,  belonged  the 
Toledan  Naharro,  famous  as  an  interpreter  of  the  bully, 
and  as  the  foremost  of  Spanish  stage-managers.  "  He 
still  further  enriched  theatrical  adornment,  substituting 
chests  and  trunks  for  the  costume-bag.  Into  the  body 


CERVANTES  2 i 3 

of  the  house  he  brought  the  musicians,  who  had  hitherto 
sung  behind  the  blanket.  He  did  away  with  the  false 
beards  which  till  then  actors  had  always  worn,  and  he 
made  all  play  without  a  make-up,  save  those  who  per- 
formed old  men's  parts,  or  such  characters  as  implied  a 
change  of  appearance.  He  introduced  machinery, 
clouds,  thunder,  lightning,  duels,  and  battles ;  but  this 
reached  not  the  perfection  of  our  day." 

This  is  the  testimony  of  the  most  renowned  person- 
ality in  Castilian  literature.  MIGUEL  DE  CERVANTES 
SAAVEDRA  (1547-1616)  describes  himself  as  a  native  of 
Alcala  de  Henares,  in  a  legal  document  signed  at  Madrid 
on  December  18,  1580 :  the  long  dispute  as  to  his 
birthplace  is  thus  at  last  settled.  His  stock  was  pure 
Castilian,  its  solar  being  at  Cervatos,  near  Reinosa: 
the  connection  with  Galicia  is  no  older  than  the  four- 
teenth century.  His  family  surname  of  Cervantes  pro- 
bably comes  from  the  castle  of  San  Cervantes,  beyond 
Toledo,  which  was  named  after  the  Christian  martyr 
Servandus.  The  additional  name  of  Saavedra  is  not  on 
the  title-page  of  the  writer's  first  book,  the  Galatea, 
However,  Miguel  de  Cervantes  uses  the  Saavedra  in  a 
petition  addressed  to  Pope  Gregory  XIII.  and  Felipe  II. 
in  October  1578;  and,  as  Cervantes  was  not  then,  though 
it  is  now,  an  uncommon  name,  the  addition  served  to 
distinguish  the  author  from  contemporary  clansmen. 
He  was  the  second  (though  not,  as  heretofore  believed, 
the  youngest)  son  of  Rodrigo  de  Cervantes  Saavedra 
and  of  Leonor  Cortinas.  Of  the  mother  we  know 
nothing  :  garrulous  as  was  her  famous  son,  he  nowhere 
alludes  to  her,  nor  did  he  follow  the  usual  Spanish  prac- 
tice by  adding  her  surname  to  his  own.  The  father  was 
a  licentiate — of  laws,  so  it  is  conjectured.  Research  only 


214  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

yields  two  facts  concerning  him  :  that  he  was  incurably 
deaf,  and  that  he  was  poor. 

Cervantes'  birthday  is  unknown.  He  was  baptized  at 
the  Church  of  Santa  Marfa  Mayor,  in  Alcala  de  Henares, 
on  Sunday,  October  9,  1547.  One  Tomas  Gonzalez 
asserted  that  he  had  found  Cervantes'  name  in  the 
matriculation  lists  of  Salamanca  University ;  but  the 
entry  has  never  been  verified  since,  and  its  report  lacks 
probability.  If  Cervantes  ever  studied  at  any  university, 
we  should  expect  to  find  him  at  that  of  his  native  town, 
Alcala  de  Henares.  His  name  does  not  appear  in  the 
University  calendar.  Though  he  made  his  knowledge 
go  far,  he  was  anything  but  learned,  and  college  witlings 
bantered  him  for  having  no  degree.  No  information 
exists  concerning  his  youth.  He  is  first  mentioned  in 
1569,  when  a  Madrid  dominie,  Juan  L6pez  de  Hoyos, 
speaks  of  him  as  "  our  dear  and  beloved  pupil "  ;  and 
some  conjecture  that  he  was  an  usher  in  Hoyos'  school. 
His  earliest  literary  performance  is  discovered  (1569)  in 
a  collection  of  verses  on  the  death  of  Felipe  II.'s  third 
wife.  The  volume,  edited  by  Hoyos,  is  entitled  the  His- 
toriay  relation  verdadera  de  la  enfermedad,felidsimo  trdnsito 
y  suntuosas  exequias  funebres  de  la  Serenisima  Reina  de 
Espana,  Dona  Isabel  de  Valois.  Cervantes'  contributions 
are  an  epitaph  in  sonnet  form,  five  redondillas,  and  an 
elegy  of  one  hundred  and  ninety-nine  lines :  this  last 
being  addressed  to  Cardinal  Diego  de  Espinosa  in  the 
name  of  the  whole  school — en  nombre  de  todo  el  estudio. 
These  poor  pieces  are  reproduced  solely  because  Cer- 
vantes wrote  them  :  it  is  very  doubtful  if  he  ever  saw 
them  in  print.  He  is  alleged  to  have  been  guilty  of 
lese-majestt  in  Hurtado  de  Mendoza's  fashion  ;  but  this 
is  surmise,  as  is  also  a  pendant  story  of  his  love  pas- 


CERVANTES  THE  SOLDIER  215 

sages  with  a  Maid  of  Honour.  It  is  certain  that,  on 
September  15,  1569,  a  warrant  was  signed  for  the  arrest 
of  one  Miguel  de  Cervantes,  who  was  condemned  to 
lose  his  right  hand  for  wounding  Antonio  de  Sigura  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  Court.  There  is  nothing  to 
prove  that  our  man  was  the  culprit ;  but  if  he  were, 
he  had  already  got  out  of  jurisdiction.  Joining  the 
household  of  the  Special  Nuncio,  Giulio  Acquaviva,  he 
left  Madrid  for  Rome  as  the  Legate's  chamberlain  in 
the  December  of  1568. 

He  was  not  the  stuff  of  which  chamberlains  are  made  ; 
and  in  1570  he  enlisted  in  the  company  commanded 
by  Diego  de  Urbina,  captain  in  Miguel  de  Moncada's 
famous  infantry  regiment,  at  that  time  serving  under 
Marc  Antonio  Colonna.  It  is  worth  noting  that  the 
Galatea  is  dedicated  to  Marc  Antonio's  son,  Ascanio 
Colonna,  Abbot  of  St.  Sophia.  In  1571  Cervantes  fought 
at  Lepanto,  where  he  was  twice  shot  in  the  chest  and  had 
his  left  hand  maimed  for  life :  "  for  the  greater  honour 
of  the  right,"  as  he  loved  to  think  and  say  with  justifiable 
vainglory.  That  he  never  tired  of  vaunting  his  share 
in  the  great  victory  is  shown  by  his  frequent  allusions 
to  it  in  his  writings ;  and  it  should  almost  seem  that  he 
was  prouder  of  his  nickname — the  Cripple  of  Lepanto 
— than  of  writing  Don  Quixote.  He  served  in  the  engage- 
ments before  Navarino,  Corfu,  Tunis,  the  Goletta ;  and 
in  all  he  bore  himself  with  credit.  Returning  to  Italy, 
he  seems  to  have  learned  the  language,  for  traces  of 
Italian  idioms  are  not  rare  even  in  his  best  pages.  From 
Naples  he  sailed  for  Spain  in  September  1575,  with 
recommendatory  letters  from  Don  Juan  de  Austria  and 
from  the  Neapolitan  Viceroy.  On  September  26,  his 
caravel,  the  Sol,  was  attacked  by  Moorish  pirates,  and, 
15 


216  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

after  a  brave  resistance,  all  on  board  were  carried  as 
prisoners  into  Algiers.  There  for  five  years  Cervantes 
abode  as  a  slave,  writing  plays  between  the  intervals  of 
his  plots  to  escape,  striving  to  organise  a  general  rising 
of  the  thousands  of  Christians.  Being  the  most  danger- 
ous, because  the  most  heroic  of  them  all,  he  became,  in 
some  sort,  the  chief  ot  his  tellows,  and,  after  the  failure 
of  several  plans  for  flight,  was  held  hostage  by  the  Dey 
for  the  town's  safety.  His  release  was  due  to  accident. 
On  September  19,  1580,  the  Redemptorist,  Fray  Juan 
Gil,  offered  five  hundred  gold  ducats  as  the  ransom  of 
a  private  gentleman  named  Jer6nimo  Palafox.  The  sum 
was  held  insufficient  to  redeem  a  man  of  Palafox's  posi- 
tion ;  but  it  sufficed  to  set  free  Cervantes,  who  was 
already  shipped  on  the  Dey's  galley  bound  for  Con- 
stantinople.1 He  is  found  at  Madrid  on  December  19, 
1580,  and  it  is  surmised  that  he  served  in  Portugal  and 
at  the  Azores.  There  are  rumours  of  his  holding  some 
small  post  at  Oran :  however  that  may  be,  he  returned 
to  Spain,  at  latest,  in  the  autumn  of  1582.  And  hence- 
forth he  belongs  to  literature. 

The  plays  written  at  Algiers  are  lost ;  but  there  survive 
two  sonnets  of  the  same  period  dedicated  to  Rufino  de 
Chamber/  (1577).  A  rhymed  epistle  to  the  Secretary  of 
State,  Mateo  Vazquez,  also  belongs  to  this  time.  We 
must  suppose  Cervantes  to  have  written  copiously  on  re- 
gaining his  liberty,  since  Galvez  de  Montalvo  speaks  of 
him  as  a  poet  of  repute  in  the  Pastor  de  Filida  (1582)  ; 
but  the  earliest  signs  of  him  in  Spain  are  his  eulogistic 
sonnets  in  Padilla's  Romancero  and  Rufo  Gutierrez'  Austri- 
ada,  both  published  in  1583.  Padilla  repaid  the  debt  by 

1  In  Felipe  II. 's  time  the  normal  value  of  an  esctido  de  oro  was  8s.  4^d. 
The  actual  exchange  value  varied  between  seven  and  eight  shillings. 


THE  GALATEA  217 

classing  the  sonneteer  among  "  the  most  famous  poets  of 
Castile."  In  December  1584,  Cervantes  married  Catalina 
de  Palacios  Salazar  y  Vozmediano,  a  native  of  Esquivias, 
eighteen  years  younger  than  himself.  It  is  often  said 
that  he  wrote  the  Galatea  as  a  means  of  furthering  his 
suit.  It  may  be  so.  But  the  book  was  not  printed  by 
Juan  Gracian  of  Alcala  de  Henares  till  March  1585, 
though  the  aprobacion  and  the  privilege  are  dated  Feb- 
ruary i  and  February  22,  1584.  In  the  year  after  his 
marriage,  Cervantes'  illegitimate  daughter,  Isabel  de 
Saavedra,  was  born.  We  shall  have  occasion  to  refer 
to  her  later.  Our  immediate  concern  is  with  the  Primera 
Parte  de  Galatea,  an  unfinished  pastoral  novel  in  six  books, 
for  which  Cervantes  received  1336  reales  from  Bias  de 
Robles ;  a  sum  which,  with  his  wife's  small  dowry,  en- 
abled him  to  start  housekeeping.1  As  a  financial  specula- 
tion the  Galatea  failed  :  only  two  later  editions  appeared 
during  the  writer's  lifetime,  one  at  Lisbon  in  1590,  the 
other  at  Paris  in  1611.  Neither  could  have  brought  him 
money ;  but  the  book,  if  it  did  nothing  else,  served  to 
make  him  known. 

He  trimmed  his  sails  to  the  popular  breeze.  Montemor 
had  started  the  pastoral  fashion,  Perez  and  Caspar  Gil 
Polo  had  followed,  and  Gdlvez  de  Montalvo  maintained 
the  tradition.  Later  in  life,  in  the  Coloquio  de  los  Perros 
(Dialogue  of  the  Dogs),  Cervantes  made  his  Berganza 
say  that  all  pastorals  are  "vain  imaginings,  void  of  truth, 
written  to  amuse  the  idle "  ;  yet  it  may  be  doubted  if 
Cervantes  ever  lost  the  pastoral  taste,  though  his  sense  of 
humour  forced  him  to  see  the  absurdity  of  the  convention. 

1  One  real  de  vel!6n  =  34  maravedis  =  2  pence,  2  farthings,  and  f  of  a 
farthing.  One  real  de  plata  =  2  reales  de  velldn.  Unless  otherwise  stated,  a 
real  may  be  taken  to  mean  a  real  de  plata. 


2i8  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

It  is  very  certain  that  he  had  a  special  fondness  for  the 
Galatea:  he  spared  it  at  the  burning  of  Don  Quixote's 
library,  praised  its  invention,  and  made  the  Priest  exhort 
the  Barber  to  await  the  sequel  which  is  foreshadowed  in 
the  Galatea's  text.  This  is  again  promised  in  the  Dedica- 
tion of  the  volume  of  plays  (1615),  in  the  Prologue  to 
the  Second  Part  of  Don  Quixote  (1615),  and  in  the 
Letter  Dedicatory  of  Persiles  y  Sigismunda,  signed  on  the 
writer's  deathbed,  April  19,  1616.  For  thirty-one  years 
Cervantes  held  out  the  promise  of  the  Galatea's  Second 
Part :  five  times  did  he  repeat  it.  It  is  plain  that  he 
thought  well  of  the  First,  and  that  his  liking  for  the  genre 
was  incorrigible. 

His  own  attempt  survives  chiefly  because  of  the  name 
on  its  title-page.  Pastorals  differ  little  in  essentials, 
and  the  kind  offers  few  openings  to  Cervantes'  peculiar 
humoristic  genius.  Like  his  fellow  -  practitioners,  he 
crowds  his  stage  with  figures  :  he  presents  his  shep- 
herds Elicio  and  Erastro  warbling  their  love  for 
Galatea  on  Tagus  bank ;  he  reveals  Mirenio  enamoured 
of  Silveria,  Leonarda  love-sick  for  Salercio,  Lenio  in  the 
toils  of  Gelasia.  Hazlitt,  in  his  harsh  criticism  of 
Sidney's  Arcadia,  hits  the  defects  of  the  pastoral,  and  his 
censures  may  be  justly  applied  to  the  Galatea.  There,  as 
in  the  English  book,  we  find  the  "  original  sin  of  allitera- 
tion, antithesis,  and  metaphysical  conceit " ;  there,  too, 
is  the  "systematic  interpolation  of  the  wit,  learning, 
ingenuity,  wisdom,  and  everlasting  impertinence  of  the 
writer."  Worst  of  all  are  "the  continual,  uncalled-for 
interruptions,  analysing,  dissecting,  disjointing,  murder- 
ing everything,  and  reading  a  pragmatical,  self-sufficient 
lecture  over  the  dead  body  of  nature."  But  if  Cervantes 
sins  in  this  wise,  he  sins  of  set  purpose  and  in  good  com- 


THE  GALATEA  219 

pany.  In  his  Fourth  Book,  he  interpolates  a  long  dis- 
quisition on  the  Beautiful  which  he  calmly  annexes  from 
Judas  Abarbanel's  Dialoghi.  As  Sannazaro  opens  his 
A  rcadia  with  Ergasto  and  Selvaggio,  so  Cervantes  thrusts 
his  Elicio  and  Erastro  into  the  foreground  of  the  Gala- 
tea ;  the  funeral  of  Meliso  is  a  deliberate  imitation  of  the 
Feast  of  Pales  ;  and,  as  the  Italian  introduced  Carmosina 
Bonifacia  under  the  name  of  Amaranta,  the  Spaniard 
perforce  gives  Catalina  de  Palacios  Salazar  as  Galatea. 
Nor  does  he  depart  from  the  convention  by  placing  him- 
self upon  the  scene  as  Elicio,  for  Ribeiro  and  Montemdr 
had  preceded  him  in  the  characters  of  Bimnardel  and 
Sereno.  Lastly,  the  idea  and  the  form  of  the  Canto  de 
Caliope,  wherein  the  uncritical  poet  celebrates  whole  tribes 
of  contemporary  singers,  are  borrowed  from  the  Canto  del 
Turia,  which  Gil  Polo  had  interpolated  in  his  Diana. 

Prolixity,  artifice,  ostentation,  monotony,  extravagance, 
are  inherent  in  the  pastoral  school ;  and  the  Galatea 
savours  of  these  defects.  Yet,  for  all  its  weakness,  it 
lacks  neither  imagination  nor  contrivance,  and  its  em- 
broidered rhetoric  is  a  fine  example  of  stately  prose. 
Save,  perhaps,  in  the  Persiles  y  Sigismunda,  Cervantes 
never  wrote  with  a  more  conscious  effort  after  excellence, 
and,  in  results  of  absolute  style,  the  Galatea  may  com- 
pare with  all  but  exceptional  passages  in  Don  Quixote. 
Yet  it  failed  to  please,  and  the  author  turned  to  other 
fields  of  effort.  His  verses  in  Pedro  de  Padilla's  Jardin 
Espiritual  (1585)  and  in  L6pez  Maldonado's  Cancionero 
(1586)  denote  good-nature  and  a  love  of  literature;  and 
in  both  volumes  Cervantes  may  have  read  companion- 
pieces  written  by  a  marvellous  youth,  Lope  de  Vega, 
whom  he  had  already  praised — as  he  praised  everybody — 
in  the  Canto  de  Caliope.  He  could  not  foresee  that  in  the 


220  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

person  of  this  boy  he  was  to  meet  his  match  and  more. 
Meanwhile  in  1587  he  penned  sonnets  for  Padilla's 
Grandezas  y  Excelencias  de  la  Virgen,  and  for  Alonso  de 
Barros'  Filosofia  cortesana.  Verse-making  was  his  craze  ; 
and,  in  1588,  when  the  physician,  Francisco  Diaz,  pub- 
lished a  treatise  on  kidney  disease — Tratado  nuevamente 
impreso  acerca  de  las  enfermedades  de  los  rifiones — the 
unwearied  poetaster  was  forthcoming  with  a  sonnet  pat 
to  the  strange  occasion. 

Still,  though  he  cultivated  verse  with  as  sedulous  a 
passion  as  Don  Quixote  spent  on  Knight  -  Errantries, 
he  recognised  that  man  does  not  live  by  sonneteering 
alone,  and  he  tried  his  fate  upon  the  boards.  He  died 
with  the  happy  conviction  that  he  was  a  dramatist  of 
genius  ;  his  contemporaries  ruled  the  point  against  him, 
and  posterity  has  upheld  the  decision.  He  tells  us  that 
at  this  time  he  wrote  between  twenty  and  thirty  plays. 
We  only  know  the  titles  of  a  few  among  them — the  Gran 
Turquesca,  the  Jerusale'n,  the  Batalla  Naval  (attributed  by 
Morati'n  to  the  year  1584),  the  Amaranta  and  the  Basque 
Amoroso  (referred  to  1586),  the  Arsinda  and  the  Confusa  (to 
1587).  It  is  like  enough  that  the  Batalla  Naval  was  con- 
cerned with  Lepanto,  a  subject  of  which  Cervantes  never 
tired  ;  the  Arsinda  existed  so  late  as  1673,  when  Juan  de 
Matos  Fragoso  mentioned  it  as  "famous"  in  his  Corsaria 
Catalana;  and  our  author  himself  ranked  the  Confusa  as 
"  good  among  the  best."  The  touch  of  self-complacency 
is  amusing,  though  one  might  desire  a  better  security  than 
Bardolph's. 

Two  surviving  plays  of  the  period  are  El  Trato  de 
Argel  and  La  Numancia,  first  printed  by  Antonio  de 

Sancha  in  1784.    The  former  deals  with  the  life  of  the 
<^t*w 

Christian   slaves   in   Algiers,  and   recounts   the   passion 


CERVANTES  THE  DRAMATIST  221 

of  Zara  the  Moor  for  the  captive  Aurelio,  who  is  en- 
amoured of  Silvia.  We  must  assume  that  Cervantes 
thought  well  of  this  invention,  since  he  utilised  it  some 
thirty  years  later  in  El  Amante  Liberal;  but  the  play  is 
merely  futile.  The  introduction  of  a  lion,  of  the  Devil, 
and  of  such  abstractions  as  Necessity  and  Opportunity, 
is  as  poor  a  piece  of  machinery  as  theatre  ever  saw ;  the 
versification  is  rough  and  creaking,  improvised  without 
care  or  conscience  ;  the  situations  are  arranged  with  a 
glaring  disregard  for  truth  and  probability.  Like  Paolo 
Veronese,  Cervantes  could  rarely  resist  the  temptation 
of  painting  himself  into  his  canvas,  and  in  El  Trato  de 
Argel  he  takes  care  that  the  prisoner  Saavedra  should 
declaim  his  tirade.  The  piece  has  no  dramatic  interest, 
and  is  valuable  merely  as  an  over-coloured  picture  of 
vicissitudes  by  one  who  knew  them  at  first-hand,  and 
who  presented  them  to  his  countrymen  with  a  more 
or  less  didactic  intention.  Yet,  even  as  a  transcript  of 
manners,  this  luckless  play  is  a  failure. 

A  finer  example  of  Cervantes'  dramatic  power  is  the 
Numana'afon  which  Shelley  has  passed  this  generous  judg- 
ment : — "  I  have  read  the  Numancza,  and,  after  wading 
through  the  singular  stupidity  of  the  First  Act,  began  to 
be  greatly  delighted,  and  at  length  interested  in  a  very 
high  degree,  by  the  power  of  the  writer  in  awakening 
pity  and  admiration,  in  which  I  hardly  know  by  whom 
he  is  excelled.  There  is  little,  I  allow,  to  be  called  poetry 
in  this  play ;  but  the  command  of  language  and  the  har- 
mony of  versification  is  so  great  as  to  deceive  one  into 
an  idea  that  it  is  poetry."  Nor  is  Shelley  alone  in  his  ad- 
miration. Goethe's  avowal  to  Humboldt  is  on  record: — 
"  Sogar  habe  ich  .  .  .  neulich  das  Trauerspiel  Numancia 
von  Cervantes  mit  vielem  Vergniigen  gelesen;"  but  eight 


222  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

years  later  he  confided  a  revised  judgment  to  Riemer. 
The  gushing  school  of  German  Romantics  waxed  deli- 
rious; in  praise.  Thus  Friedrich  Schlegel  surpassed  him- 
self by  calling  the  play  "godlike";  and  August  Schlegel, 
not  content  to  hold  it  for  a  dramatic  masterpiece,  would 
persuade  us  to  accept  it  for  great  poetry.  Even  Sismondi 
declares  that  "  le  frisson  de  1'horreur  et  de  1'effroi  devient 
presque  un  supplice  pour  le  spectateur." 

Raptures  apart,  the  Numancia  is  Cervantes'  best  play. 
He  has  a  grandiose  subject :  the  siege  of  Numantia,  and 
its  capture  by  Scipio  Africanus  after  fourteen  years  of 
resistance.  On  the  Roman  side  were  eighty  thousand 
soldiers  ;  the  Spaniards  numbered  four  thousand  or  less ; 
and  the  victors  entered  the  fallen  city  to  find  no  soul 
alive.  With  scenes  of  valour  is  mingled  the  pathetic 
love-story  of  Morandro  and  Lyra.  But,  once  again, 
Cervantes  fails  as  a  dramatic  artist ;  one  doubts  if  he 
knew  what  a  plot  was,  what  unity  of  conception  meant. 
He  has  scenes  and  episodes  of  high  excellence,  but  they 
are  detached  from  the  main  composition,  and  produce 
all  the  bad  effect  of  a  portrait  painted  in  different  lights. 
Abstractions  fill  the  stage  —  War,  Sickness,  Hunger, 
Spain,  the  river  Duero.  But  the  tirades  of  rhetoric 
are  unsurpassed  by  anything  from  Cervantes'  pen,  and 
Marquino's  scene  with  the  corpse  in  the  Second  Act 
is  pregnant  with  a  suggestion  of  weirdness  which  Mr. 
Gibson  has  well  conveyed  : — 

Marquino.  "  What!    Dost  not  answer?    Dost  not  live  again, 
Or  haply  hast  thou  tasted  death  once  more? 
Then  will  I  quicken  thee  anew  with  pain, 
And  for  thy  good  t^e  gift  of  speech  restore. 
Since  thou  art  one  of  us,  do  not  disdain 
To  speak  and  answer \  as  I  now  implore;  .  .  . 


THE  NUMANCIA  223 

Ye  spirits  vile,  it  worketh  not  ye  trust ! 
But  wait,  for  soon  the  enchanted  water  here 
Will  show  my  will  to  be  as  strong  and  just 
As  yours  is  treacherous  and  insincere. 
And  though  tiiis  flesh  were  turned  to  very  dust, 
Yet  being  quickened  by  this  lash  austere, 
Which  cuts  with  cruel  rigour  like  a  knife,      / 
It  will  regain  a  new  though  fleeting  life. 
Thou  rebel  soul,  seek  now  the  home  again 
Thou  leftest  empty  these  few  hours  ago. 
The  Body.  Restrain  the  fury  of  thy  reckless  pain ; 
Suffice  it,  O  Marquino,  man  of  woe, 
What  I  do  suffer  in  the  realms  obscure, 
Nor  give  me  pangs  more  fearful  to  endure. 
Thou  errest,  if  thou  thinkest  that  I  crave 
This  painful,  pinched,  and  narrow  life  I  have, 
Which  even  now  is  ebbing  fast  away,  .  .  . 
Since  Death  a  second  time,  with  bitter  sway, 
Will  triumph  over  me  in  life  and  soul, 
And  gain  a  double  palm,  beyond  control. 
For  he  and  others  of  the  dismal  band, 
Who  do  thy  bidding  subject  to  thy  spell, 
Are  raging  round  and  round,  and  waiting  stand, 
Till  I  shall  finish  what  I  have  to  tell.  .  .  . 
The  Romans  ne'er  shall  victory  obtain 
O'er  proud  Numantia  ;  still  less  shall  she 
A  glorious  triumph  o'er  her  foemen  gain ; 
^Twixt  friends  and  foes,  both  have  to  a  degree, 
Think  not  that  settled  peace  shall  ever  reign 
Where  rage  meets  rage  in  strife  eternally. 
The  friendly  hand,  with  homicidal  knife, 
Will  slay  Numantia  and  will  give  her  life. 

[He  hurls  himself  into  the  sepulchre,  and  says  :— • 
I  say  no  more,  Marquino,  time  is  fleet; 
The  Fates  will  grant  to  me  no  more  delay, 
And,  though  my  wort's  may  seem  to  thee  deceit, 
Thou' It  find  at  last  the  truth  of  what  I  say" 

Even  in  translation — still  more  in  the  original — the 
rhetoric  of  this  passage  is  imposing  ;  yet  we  perceive 
rhetoric  to  be  contagious  when  Ticknor  asserts  that 


224  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

"there  is  nothing  of  so  much  dignity  in  the  incantation* 
of  Marlowe's  Faustus"  Still  more  amazing  is  Ticknor's 
second  appreciation  : — "  Nor  does  even  Shakspeare  de- 
mand from  us  a  sympathy  so  strange  with  the  mortal 
head  reluctantly  rising  to  answer  Macbeth's  guilty 
question,  as  Cervantes  makes  us  feel  for  this  suffering 
spirit,  recalled  to  life  only  to  endure  a  second  time  the 
pangs  of  dissolution."  The  school  is  decently  interred 
which  mistook  critics  for  Civil  Service  Commissioners, 
and  Parnassus  for  Burlington  House.  It  is  impossible 
to  compare  Cervantes'  sonorous  periods  and  Marlowe's 
majestic  eloquence,  nor  is  it  less  unwise  to  match  his 
moving  melodrama  against  one  of  the  greatest  tragedies 
in  the  world.  His  great  scene  has  its  own  merit  as  an 
artificial  embellishment,  as  a  rhetorical  adornment,  as 
an  exercise  in  bravura ;  but  the  episode  is  not  only  out 
of  place  where  it  is  found — it  leads  from  nowhere  to 
nothing.  More  dramatic  in  spirit  and  effect  is  the  speech 
declaimed  by  Scipio  when  the  last  Numantian,  Viriato, 
hurls  himself  from  the  tower  : — 

"  O  matchless  action,  -worthy  of  the  meed 
Which  old  and  -valiant  soldiers  love  to  gain  / 
Thou  hast  achieved  a  glory  by  thy  deed, 
Not  only  for  Numantia,  but  for  Spain  ! 
Thy  -valour  strange,  heroical  in  deed, 
Hath  robbed  vie  of  my  rights,  and  made  them  -vain; 
For  with  thy  fall  thou  hast  upraised  thy  fame. 
And  le-uelled  do-wn  my  victories  to  shame  / 
Oh,  could  Numantia  gain  -what  she  hath  lost, 
I  would  rejoice,  if  but  to  see  thee  there! 
For  thou  hast  reaped  the  gain  and  honour  most 
Of  this  long  siege,  illustrious  and  rare  ! 
Bear  thou,  O  stripling,  bear  away  tiie  boast, 
Enjoy  the  glory  which  the  Heavens  prepare, 
For  thou  hast  conquered,  by  thy  very  fall, 
Him  who  in  rising Jalleth  worst  of  all" 


THE  NUMANCIA  225 

Here,  once  more,  we  are  dealing  with  a  passage  which 
gains  by  detachment  from  its  context.  To  speak  plainly, 
the  interest  of  the  Numanda  is  not  dramatic,  and  its  ver- 
sification, good  of  its  kind,  may  easily  be  overpraised,  as 
it  was  by  Shelley.  First  and  last,  the  play  is  a  devout 
and  passionate  expression  of  patriotism  ;  and,  as  such, 
the  writer's  countrymen  have  held  it  in  esteem,  never 
claiming  for  it  the  qualities  invented  by  well-meaning 
foreigners.  Lope  de  Vega  and  Calder6n  still  hold  the 
stage,  from  which  Cervantes,  the  disciple  of  Viru^s,  was 
driven  three  centuries  ago  ;  and  they  survive,  the  one  as 
an  hundredfold  more  potent  dramatist,  the  other  as  an 
infinitely  greater  poet.  Yet,  like  the  ghost  raised  by 
Marquino,  Cervantes  was  to  undergo  a  momentary 
resurrection.  When  Palafox  (and  Byron's  Maid)  held 
Zaragoza,  during  the  War  of  Independence,  against  the 
batteries  of  Mortier,  Junot,  and  Lannes,  the  Numanda 
was  played  within  the  besieged  walls,  so  that  Spaniards 
of  the  nineteenth  century  might  see  that  their  fathers  had 
known  how  to  die  for  freedom.  The  tragedy  was  re- 
ceived with  enthusiasm ;  the  marshals  of  the  world's 
Greatest  Captain  were  repulsed  and  beaten  ;  and  Cer- 
vantes' inspiriting  lines  helped  on  the  victory.  In  life, 
he  had  never  met  with  such  a  triumph,  and  in  „  death 
no  other  could  have  pleased  him  better. 

He  asserts,  indeed,  that  his  plays  were  popular,  and 
he  may  have  persuaded  himself  into  that  belief.  His 
idolaters  preach  the  legend  that  he  was  driven  from  the 
boards  by  that  "  portent  of  genius,"  Lope  de  Vega.  This 
tale  is  a  vain  imagining.  Cervantes  failed  so  wretchedly 
in  art  that  in  1588  he  left  the  Madrid  stage  to  seek  work 
in  Seville ;  and  no  play  of  Lope's  dates  so  early  as  that, 
save  one  written  while  he  was  at  school.  In  June  1588, 


226  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Cervantes  became  Deputy-Purveyor  to  the  Invincible 
Armada,  and  in  May  1590  he  petitioned  for  one  of  four 
appointments  vacant  in  Granada,  Guatemala,  Cartagena, 
and  La  Paz.  But  he  never  quite  abandoned  literature. 
In  1591  he  wrote  a  romance  for  Andre's  de  Villalba's  Flor 
de  varios  y  nuevos  romances,  and,  in  the  following  year, 
he  contracted  with  the  Seville  manager,  Rodrigo  Osorio, 
to  write  six  comedies  at  fifty  ducats  each — no  money 
to  be  paid  unless  Osorio  should  rank  the  plays  "  among 
the  best  in  Spain."  No  more  is  heard  of  this  agreement, 
and  Cervantes  disappears  till  1594,  when  he  was  ap- 
pointed tax-gatherer  in  Granada.  Next  year  he  com- 
peted at  a  literary  tournament  held  by  the  Dominicans 
of  Zaragoza  in  honour  of  St.  Hyacinth,  and  won  the 
first  prize  —  three  silver  spoons.  His  sonnet  to  the 
famous  sea-dog,  Santa  Cruz,  is  printed  in  Cristobal 
Mosquera  de  Figueroa's  Comentario  en  breve  Compendia 
de  Disciplina  militar  (1596),  and  his  bitter  sonnet  on 
Medina  Sidonia's  entry  into  Cadiz,  already  sacked  and 
evacuated  by  Essex,  is  of  the  same  date. 

In  1597,  being  in  Seville  about  the  time  of  Herrera's 
death,  Cervantes  wrote  his  sonnet  in  memory  of  the  great 
Andalucian.  In  September  of  this  year  the  sonneteer 
was  imprisoned  for  irregularities  in  his  accounts,  due  to 
his  having  entrusted  Government  funds  to  one  Sim6n 
Freire  de  Lima,  who  absconded  with  the  booty.  Re- 
leased some  three  months  later,  Cervantes  was  sent 
packing  by  the  Treasury,  and  was  never  more  employed 
in  the  public  service.  Lost,  as  it  seemed,  to  hope  and 
fame,  the  ruined  man  lingered  at  Seville,  where,  in  1598, 
he  wrote  two  sonnets  and  a  copy  of  quintillas  on  Felipe 
II.'s  death.  Four  years  of  silence  were  followed  by  the 
inevitable  sonnet  in  the  second  edition  of  Lope  de 


DON  QUIXOTE  227 

Vega's  Dragontea  (1602).  It  is  certain  that  all  this  while 
Cervantes  was  scribbling  in  some  naked  garret ;  but  his 
name  seemed  almost  forgotten  from  the  earth.  In  1603 
he  was  run  to  ground,  and  served  with  an  Exchequer 
writ  concerning  those  outstanding  balances,  still  unpaid 
after  nearly  eight  years.  He  must  appear  in  person  at 
Valladolid  to  offer  what  excuse  he  might.  Light  as  his 
baggage  was,  it  contained  one  precious,  immediate  jewel 
— the  manuscript  of  Don  Quixote.  The  Treasury  soon 
found  that  to  squeeze  money  from  him  was  harder 
than  to  draw  blood  from  a  stone  :  the  debt  remained 
unsettled.  But  his  journey  was  not  in  vain.  On  his 
way  to  Valladolid,  he  found  a  publisher  for  Don  Quixote. 
The  Royal  Privilege  is  dated  September  26,  1604,  and 
in  January  1605  the  book  was  sold  at  Madrid  across  the 
counter  of  Francisco  de  Robles,  bookseller  to  the  King. 
Cervantes  dedicated  his  volume,  in  terms  boldly  filched 
from  Herrera  and  Medina,  to  the  Duque  de  Be"jar.  In  a 
previous  age  the  author's  kinsman  had  anticipated  the 
compliment  by  addressing  a  gloss  of  Jorge  Manrique's 
Coplas  to  Alvaro  de  Stuftiga,  second  Duque  de  Bejar. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  when  Don  Quixote  was  written ; 
later,  certainly,  than  1591,  for  it  alludes  to  Bernardo  de 
la  Vega's  Pastor  de  Iberia,  published  in  that  year.  Legend 
says  that  the  First  Part  was  begun  in  gaol,  and  so  Lang- 
ford  includes  it  in  his  Prison  Books  and  their  Authors. 
The  only  ground  for  the  belief  is  a  phrase  in  the  Pro- 
logue which  describes  the  work  as  "a  dry,  shrivelled, 
whimsical  offspring  .  .  .  just  what  might  be  begotten  in 
a  prison."  This  may  be  a  mere  figure  of  speech  ;  yet 
the  tradition  persists  that  Cervantes  wrote  his  master- 
piece in  the  cellar  of  the  Casa  de  Medrano  at  Arga- 
masilla  de  Alba.  Certain  it  is  that  Argamasilla  is  Don 


228  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

Quixote's  native  town.  The  burlesque  verses  at  the  end 
indicate  precisely  that  "certain  village  in  La  Mancha, 
the  name  of  which,"  says  Cervantes  dryly,  "  I  have  no 
desire  to  recall."  Quevedo  witnesses  that  the  fact  was 
accepted  by  contemporaries,  and  topography  puts  it 
beyond  doubt.  The  manuscript  passed  through  many 
hands  before  reaching  the  printer,  Cuesta:  whence  a 
double  mention  of  it  before  publication.  The  author 
of  the  Picara  Justina,  who  anticipated  Cervantes'  poor 
device  of  the  versos  de  cabo  roto — truncated  rhymes — in 
Don  Quixote,  ranks  the  book  beside  the  Celestina,  Laza- 
rillo  de  Tormes,  and  Guzman  de  Alfarache ;  yet  the  Picara 
Justina  was  licensed  on  August  22,  1604.  The  title  falls 
from  a  far  more  illustrious  pen  :  in  a  private  letter 
written  on  August  14,  1604,  Lope  de  Vega  observes  that 
no  budding  poet  "  is  so  bad  as  Cervantes,  none  so  silly 
as  to  praise  Don  Quixote"  There  will  be  occasion  to 
return  presently  to  this  much-quoted  remark. 

Clearly  the  book  was  discussed,  and  not  always  ap- 
proved, by  literary  critics  some  months  before  it  was  in 
print  :  but  critics  of  all  generations  have  been  taught 
that  their  opinions  go  for  nothing  with  the  public,  which 
persists  in  being  amused  against  rules  and  dogmas.  Don 
Quixote  carried  everything  before  it  :  its  vogue  almost 
equalled  that  of  Guzman  de  Alfarache,  and  by  July  a 
fifth  edition  was  preparing  at  Valencia.  Cervantes  has 
told  us  his  purpose  in  plain  words: — "to  diminish  the 
authority  and  acceptance  that  books  of  chivalry  have  in 
the  world  and  among  the  vulgar."  Yet  his  own  avowal 
is  rejected.  Defoe  averred  that  Don  Quixote  was  a  satire 
on  Medina  Sidonia;  Landor  applauded  the  book  as  "the 
most  dexterous  attack  ever  made  against  the  worship 
of  the  Virgin  "  ;  and  such  later  crocheteers  as  Rawdon 


DON  QUIXOTE  229 

Brown  have  industriously  proved  Sancho  Panza  to  be 
Pedro  Franqueza,  and  the  whole  novel  to  be  a  burlesque 
on  contemporary  politics.1 

Cervantes  was  unlucky  in  life,  nor  did  his  misfortunes 
end  with  his  days.  Posthumous  idolatry  seeks  to  atone 
for  contemporary  neglect,  and  there  has  come  into 
being  a  tribe  of  ignorant  fakirs,  assuming  the  title  of 
"  Cervantophils,"  and  seeking  to  convert  a  man  of  genius 
into  a  common  Mumbo-Jumbo.  A  master  of  invention, 
a  humourist  beyond  compare,  an  expert  in  ironic  ob- 
servation, a  fellow  meet  for  Shakespeare's  self:  all  that 
suffices  not  for  these  fanatical  dullards.  Their  deity 
must  be  accepted  also  as  a  poet,  a  philosophic  thinker, 
a  Puritan  tub-thumper,  a  political  reformer,  a  finished 
scholar,  a  purist  in  language,  and — not  least  amazing — 
an  ascetic  in  private  morals.  A  whole  shelf  might  be 
filled  with  works  upon  Cervantes  the  doctor,  Cervantes 
the  lawyer,  the  sailor,  the  geographer,  and  who  knows 
what  else  ?  Like  his  contemporary  Shakespeare,  Cer- 
vantes took  a  peculiar  interest  in  cases  of  dementia ; 
and,  in  England  and  Spain,  the  afflicted  have  shown 
both  authors  much  reciprocal  attention.  We  must  even 
take  Cervantes  as  he  was :  a  literary  artist  stronger  in 
practice  than  in  theory,  great  by  natural  faculty  rather 
than  by  acquired  accomplishment.  His  learning  is 
naught,  his  reasonings  are  futile,  his  speculation  is  banal. 
In  short  passages  he  is  one  of  the  greatest  masters 
of  Castilian  prose,  clear,  direct,  and  puissant :  but  he 
soon  tires,  and  is  prone  to  lapse  into  Italian  idioms,  or 
into  irritating  sentences  packed  with  needless  relatives. 
Cervantes  lives  not  as  a  great  practitioner  in  style,  a 
sultan  of  epithet — though  none  could  better  him  when 

1  See  The  Athenaum,  April  12,  April  19,  and  May  3,  1873. 


230  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

he  chose;  nor  is  he  potent  as  a  purely  intellectual  in- 
fluence. He  is  immortal  by  reason  of  his  creative  power, 
his  imaginative  resource,  his  wealth  of  invention,  his 
penetrating  vision,  his  inimitable  humour,  his  boundless 
sympathy.  Hence  the  universality  of  his  appeal :  hence 
the  splendour  of  his  secular  renown. 

It  is  certain  that  he  builded  better  than  he  knew,  and 
that  not  even  he  realised  the  full  scope  of  his  work :  we 
know  from  Goethe  that  the  maker  has  to  be  taught  his 
own  meaning.  The  contemporary  allusions,  the  sly  hits 
at  foes,  are  mostly  mysteries  for  us,  though  they  amuse 
the  laborious  leisure  of  the  commentator.  Chivalresque 
romances  are  with  last  year's  snows :  but  the  interest  of 
Don  Quixote  abides  for  ever.  Cervantes  set  out  intend- 
ing to  write  a  comic  short  story,  and  the  design  grew 
under  his  hand  till  at  length  it  included  a  whole 
Human  Comedy.  He  himself  was  as  near  akin  to  Don 
Quixote  as  a  man  may  be  :  he  knew  his  chivalresque 
romances  by  heart,  and  accounted  Amadis  de  Gaula  as 
"the  very  best  contrived  book  of  all  those  of  that  kind." 
Yet  he  has  been  accused  by  his  own  people  of  plotting 
his  country's  ruin,  and  has  been  held  up  to  contempt  as 
"the  headsman  and  the  ax  of  Spain's  honour."  Byron 
repeats  the  ridiculous  taunt : — 

"  Cervantes  smiled  Spain's  chivalry  away; 

A  single  laugh  demolished  the  right  arm 
Of  his  own  country;  seldom  since  that  day 

Has  Spain  had  heroes.     While  Romance  could  charm, 
The  world  gave  ground  before  her  bright  array; 

And  therefore  have  his  volumes  done  such  harm, 
That  all  their  glory,  as  a  composition, 
Was  dearly  purchased  by  his  land 's  perdition? 

The  chivalresque  madness  was  well-nigh  over  when  our 


DON  QUIXOTE  231 

author  made  his  onset :  he  but  hastened  the  end.  After 
the  publication  of  Don  Quixote,  no  new  chivalresque 
romance  was  written,  and  only  one — the  Caballero  del 
Febo  (1617) — was  reprinted.  And  the  reason  is  obvious. 
It  was  not  that  Cervantes'  work  was  merely  destructive, 
that  he  was  simply  a  clever  artist  in  travesty  :  it  was  that 
he  gave  better  than  he  took  away,  and  that  he  revealed 
himself,  not  only  to  Spain,  but  to  the  world,  as  a  great 
creative  master,  and  an  irresistible,  because  an  universal, 
humourist. 

There  is  endless  discussion  as  to  the  significance  of 
his  masterpiece,  and  the  acutest  critics  have  uttered 
"  great  argument  about  it  and  about."  That  an  allegory 
of  human  life  was  intended  is  incredible.  Cervantes 
presents  the  Ingenious  Gentleman  as  the  Prince  of 
Courtesy,  affable,  gallant,  wise  on  all  points  save  that 
trifling  one  which  annihilates  Time  and  Space  and 
changes  the  aspect  of  the  Universe  :  and  he  attaches  to 
him,  Sancho,  self-seeking,  cautious,  practical  in  presence 
of  vulgar  opportunities.  The  types  are  eternal.  But  it 
were  too  much  to  assume  that  there  exists  any  conscious 
symbolic  or  esoteric  purpose  in  the  dual  presentation. 
Cervantes  is  inspired  solely  by  the  artistic  intention 
which  would  create  personages,  and  would  divert  by 
abundance  of  ingenious  fantasy,  by  sublimation  of  char- 
acter, by  wealth  of  episode  and  incident,  and  by  the 
genius  of  satiric  portraiture.  He  tessellates  with  what- 
soever mosaic  chances  to  strike  his  fancy.  It  may  be 
that  he  inlays  his  work  with  such  a  typical  sonnet 
as  that  which  Mr.  Gosse  has  transferred  from  the 
twenty-third  chapter  of  Don  Quixote  to  In  Russet  and 
Silver —  an  excellent  example,  which  shall  be  quoted 
here  : — 

16 


232  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

"  When  I  was  marked  for  suffering,  Love  forswore 
All  knowledge  of  my  doom  :  or  else  at  ease 
Love  grows  a  cruel  tyrant,  hard  to  please; 
Or  else  a  chastisement  exceeding  sore 
A  little  sin  hath  brought  me.     Hush  !  no  more  ! 
Love  is  a  god!  all  things  he  knows  and  sees, 
And  gods  are  bland  and  mild !     Who  then  decrees 
The  dreadful  woe  I  bear  and  yet  adore  ? 
If  I  should  say,  O  Phyllis,  that  'twas  thou, 

I  should  speak  falsely,  since,  being  wholly  good 

Like  Heaven  itself,  from  thee  no  ill  may  come. 
There  is  no  hope;  I  must  die  shortly  now, 
Not  knowing  why,  since  sure  no  witch  hath  brewed 
The  drug  that  might  avert  my  martyrdom" 

Hereunto  the  writer  adds  reminiscences  of  slavery, 
picaresque  scenes  observed  during  his  vagabond  life  as 
tax-gatherer,  tales  of  Italian  intrigue  re-echoed  from 
Bandello,  flouts  at  Lope  de  Vega,  a  treasure  of  adven- 
tures and  experience,  a  strain  of  mockery  both  individual 
and  general.  Small  wonder  if  the  world  received  Don 
Quixote  with  delight !  There  was  nothing  like  unto  it 
before  :  there  has  been  nothing  to  eclipse  it  since.  It 
ends  one  epoch  and  begins  another :  it  intones  the 
dirge  of  the  mediaeval  novel  :  it  announces  the  arrival 
of  the  new  generations,  and  it  belongs  to  both  the  past 
and  the  coming  ages.  At  the  point  where  the  paths 
diverge,  Don  Quixote  stands,  dominating  the  entire  land- 
scape of  fiction.  Time  has  failed  to  wither  its  variety 
or  to  lessen  its  force,  and  posterity  accepts  it  as  a 
masterpiece  of  humoristic  fancy,  of  complete  obser- 
vation and  unsurpassed  invention.  It  ceases,  in  effect, 
to  belong  to  Spain  as  a  mere  local  possession,  though 
nothing  can  deprive  her  of  the  glory  of  producing  it. 
Cervantes  ranks  with  Shakespeare  and  with  Homer  as  a 
citizen  of  the  world,  a  man  of  all  times  and  countries, 


CERVANTES  IN  JAIL  233 

and  Don  Quixote,  with  Hamlet  and  the  Iliad,  belongs  to 
universal  literature,  and  is  become  an  eternal  pleasaunce 
of  the  mind  for  all  the  nations. 

Cervantes  had  his  immediate  reward  in  general 
acceptance.  Reprints  of  his  book  followed  in  Spain, 
and  in  1607  the  original  was  reproduced  at  Brussels. 
The  French  teacher  of  Spanish,  Cesar  Oudin,  inter- 
polated the  tale  of  the  Curious  Impertinent  between  the 
covers  of  Julio  Ifriguez  de  Medrano's  Silva  Curiosa, 
published  for  the  second  time  at  Paris  in  1608  ;  in  the 
same  year  Jean  Baudouin  did  this  story  into  French, 
and  in  1609  an  anonymous  arrangement  of  Marcela's 
story  was  Gallicised  as  Le  Meurtre  de  la  Fid/lit/  et  la 
Defense  de  I* Honneur.  This  sufficed  for  fame  :  yet  Cer- 
vantes made  no  instant  attempt  to  repeat  his  triumph. 
For  eight  years  he  was  silent,  save  for  occasional  copies 
of  verse.  The  baptism  of  the  future  Felipe  IV.,  and  the 
embassy  of  Lord  Nottingham — best  known  as  Howard  of 
Effingham,  the  admiral  in  command  against  the  Invin- 
cible Armada — are  recorded  in  courtly  fashion  by  the 
anonymous  writer  of  a  pamphlet  entitled  Reladon  de  lo 
sucedido  en  la  Ciudad  de  Valladolid,  G6ngora,  who  dealt 
with  both  subjects,  flouts  Cervantes  as  the  pamphleteer ; 
but  the  authorship  is  doubtful.  Cervantes  is  next  heard 
of  in  custody  on  suspicion  of  knowing  more  than  he 
chose  to  tell  concerning  the  death  of  Caspar  de  Ezpeleta, 
in  June  1605.  Legend  makes  Ezpeleta  the  lover  of  Cer- 
vantes' natural  daughter,  Isabel  de  Saavedra  :  "  the  point 
of  honour"  at  once  suggests  itself,  and  the  incident  has 
inspired  both  dramatists  and  novelists.  A  conspiracy  of 
silence  on  the  part  of  biographers  has  done  Cervantes 
much  wrong,  and  is  responsible  for  exaggerated  stories 
of  his  guilt.  He  was  discharged  after  inquiry,  and  seems 


234  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

to  have  been  entirely  innocent  of  contriving  Ezpeleta's 
end.  Many  romantic  stories  have  gathered  about  the 
personality  of  Isabel:  she  has  been  passed  upon  us  as  the 
daughter  of  a  Portuguese  "  lady  of  high  quality,"  and  the 
prop  of  her  father's  declining  days.  These  are  idolatrous 
inventions  :  we  now  know  for  certain  that  her  mother's 
name  was  Ana  Franca  de  Rojas,  a  poor  woman  married 
to  Alonso  Rodriguez,  and  that  the  girl  herself  (who  in 
1605  was  unable  to  read  and  write)  was  indentured  as 
general  servant  to  Cervantes'  sister,  Magdalena  de  Soto- 
mayor,  in  August  1599.*  Thence  she  passed  to  Cervantes' 
household,  and  it  is  even  alleged  that  she  was  twice 
married  in  her  father's  lifetime.  She  has  been  so  pic- 
turesquely presented  by  imaginative  "  Cervantophils," 
that  it  is  necessary  to  state  the  humble  truth  here  and 
now,  for  the  first  time  in  English.  Thus  the  grotesque 
travesty  of  Cervantes  as  a  plaster  saint  returns  to  the 
Father  of  Lies,  who  begat  it.  Confirmation  of  his  ex- 
ploits as  a  loose  liver  in  gaming-houses  is  afforded  by 
the  Memorias  de  Valladolid,  now  among  the  manuscripts 
in  the  British  Museum.2 

Such  diversions  as  these  left  him  scant  time  for  litera- 
ture. The  space  between  1605  and  1608  yields  the 
pitiful  show  of  three  sonnets  in  four  years :  To  a 
Hermit,  To  the  Conde  de  Saldanat  To  a  Braggart  turned 
Beggar.  Even  this  last  is  sometimes  referred  to  Quevedo. 
It  should  hardly  seem  that  prosperity  suited  Cervantes. 
Meanwhile,  his  womenfolk  gained  their  bread  by  taking 
in  the  Marques  de  Villafranca's  sewing.  Still,  he 
made  no  sign  :  the  author  of  Don  Quixote  sank  lower 

1  See   Cristobal   Perez   de   Pastor's  Documentor  cervantinos  hasta  ahora 
inidilos  (Madrid,  1897),  pp.  135-137. 
J  British  Museum  Add.  MSS.,  20,  812. 


THE  NOVELAS  EXEMPLARES     235 

and  lower,  writing  letters  for  illiterates  at  a  small  fee. 
The  Letter  to  Don  Diego  de  Astudillo  Carrillo,  the  Story 
of  what  happens  in  Seville  Gaol  (a  sequel  to  Cristobal  de 
Chaves'  sketch  made  twenty  years  before),  the  Dialogue 
between  Sillenia  and  Selanto,  the  three  entremeses  entitled 
Dona  Justtna  y  Calahorra,  Los  Mirones,  and  Los  Re- 
franes — all  these  are  of  doubtful  authenticity.  In  April 
1609,  Cervantes  took  a  thought  and  mended  :  he  joined 
Fray  Alonso  de  la  Purificaci6n's  new  Confraternity  of 
the  Blessed  Sacrament,  and  in  1610  wrote  his  sonnet  in 
memory  of  Diego  Hurtado  de  Mendoza.  In  1611  he 
entered  the  Academia  Selvaje,  founded  by  that  Fran- 
cisco de  Silva  whose  praises  were  sung  later  in  the 
Viaje  del  Parnaso,  and  he  prepared  that  unique  com- 
pound of  fact  and  fancy,  the  rarest  humour  and  the  most 
curious  experience — his  twelve  Novelas  Exemplares,  which 
were  licensed  on  August  8,  1612,  and  appeared  in  1613. 

These  short  tales  were  written  at  long  intervals  of  time, 
as  the  internal  evidence  shows.  In  the  forty-seventh 
chapter  of  Don  Quixote  there  is  mention  by  name  of 
Rinconete  y  Cortadillo,  a  picaresque  story  of  extraordinary 
brilliancy  and  point  included  among  the  Exemplary 
Novels;  and  a  companion  piece  is  the  Coloquio  de  los 
Perros,  no  less  a  masterpiece  in  little.  Monipodio,  master 
of  a  school  for  thieves  ;  his  pious  jackal,  Ganchuelo,  who 
never  steals  on  Friday ;  the  tipsy  Pipota,  who  reels  as 
she  lights  her  votive  candle — these  are  triumphs  in  the 
art  of  portraiture.  Not  even  Sancho  Panza  is  wittier  in 
reflection  than  the  dog  Berganza,  who  reviews  his  many 
masters  in  the  light  of  humorous  criticism.  No  less 
distinguished  is  the  presentation,  in  El  Casamiento  En- 
ganoso,  of  the  picaroons  Campuzano  and  Estefania  de 
Caicedo  ;  and  as  an  exercise  in  fantastic  transcription 


236  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

of  mania  the  Licenciado  Vidriera  lags  not  behind  Don 
Quixote.  So  striking  is  the  resemblance  that  some  have 
held  the  Licentiate  for  the  first  sketch  of  the  Knight ;  but 
an  attentive  reading  shows  that  he  was  not  conceived 
till  after  Don  Quixote  was  in  print.  In  1814,  Agustfn 
Garcfa  Arrieta  included  La  Tiafingida  (The  Mock  Aunt) 
among  Cervantes'  novels,  and,  in  a  more  complete  form, 
it  now  finds  place  in  all  editions.  Admirable  as  the  story 
is,  the  circumstance  of  its  late  appearance  throws  doubt 
on  its  authenticity ;  yet  who  but  Cervantes  could  have 
written  it  ?  Perhaps  the  surest  sign  of  his  success  is 
afforded  by  the  quality  and  number  of  his  northern 
imitators. 

"  The  land  that  cast  out  Philip  and  his  God 
Grew  gladly  subject  where  Cervantes  trod" 

Despite  assertions  to  the  contrary,  his  Gitanilla  is  no 
original  conception,  for  the  character  of  his  gipsy,  Preciosa, 
is  developed  from  that  of  Tarsiana  in  the  Apolonio  ;  yet 
from  Cervantes'  rendering  of  her,  which 

"  Gave  the  glad  watchword  of  the  gipsies'  life, 
Where  fear  took  hope  and  grief  took  joy  to  wife" 

and  from  his  tale  entitled  La  Fuerza  de  la  Sangre,  Middle- 
ton's  Spanish  Gipsy  derives.  From  Cervantes,  too,  Weber 
takes  his  opera  Preciosa,  and  from  Cervantes  comes 
Hugo's  Esmeralda.  In  Las  dos  Doncellas  Fletcher,  who 
had  already  used  Don  Quixote  in  the  Knight  of  the  Burning 
Pestle,  finds  the  root  of  Love's  Pilgrimage  ;  from  El  Casa- 
miento  Enganoso  he  takes  his  Rule  a  Wife  and  Have  a  Wife; 
and  from  La  Seflora  Cornelia  he  borrows  his  Chances. 
And,  as  Fielding  had  rejoiced  to  own  his  debt  to  Cer- 
vantes, so  Sir  Walter  has  confessed  that  "  the  Novelas  of 


THE  VIAJE  DEL  PARNASO  237 

that  author  had  first  inspired  him  with  the  ambition  of 
excelling  in  fiction." 

The  next  performance  shows  Cervantes  tempting  fate 
as  a  poet.  His  Viaje  del  Parnaso  (1614)  was  suggested 
by  the  Viaggio  di  Parnaso  (1582)  of  the  Perugian,  Cesare 
Caporali,  and  is,  in  effect,  a  rhymed  review  of  contem- 
porary poets.  Verse  is  scarcely  a  lucky  medium  for 
Cervantic  irony,  and  Cervantes  was  the  least  critical 
of  men.  His  poem  is  interesting  for  its  autobiographic 
touches,  but  it  degenerates  into  a  mere  stream  of 
eulogy,  and  when  he  ventures  on  an  attack  he  rarely 
delivers  it  with  force  or  point.  He  thought,  perhaps, 
to  put  down  bad  poets  as  he  had  put  down  bad  prose- 
writers.  But  there  was  this  difference,  that,  though 
admirable  in  prose,  he  was  not  admirable  in  verse.  In 
the  use  of  the  first  weapon  he  is  an  expert ;  in  the  prac- 
tice of  the  second  he  is  a  clever  amateur.  Cervantes 
satirising  in  prose  and  Cervantes  satirising  in  verse  are 
as  distinct  as  Samson  unshorn  and  Samson  with  his  hair 
cut.  Fortunately  he  appends  a  prose  postscript,  which 
reveals  him  in  his  finest  manner.  Nor  is  this  surprising. 
Apollo's  letter  is  dated  July  22,  1614 ;  and  we  know  that, 
two  days  earlier,  Sancho  Panza  had  dictated  his  famous 
letter  to  his  wife  Teresa.  The  master  had  found  him- 
self once  more.  The  sequel  to  Don  Quixote,  promised 
in  the  Preface  to  the  Novelas,  was  on  the  road  at  last. 
Meanwhile  he  had  busied  himself  with  a  sonnet  to  be 
published  at  Naples  in  Juan  Domingo  Roncallolo's 
Varias  Aplicaciones,  with  quatrains  for  Barrio  Angulo, 
and  stanzas  in  honour  of  Santa  Teresa. 

Moreover,  the  success  of  the  Novelas  induced  him  to 
try  the  theatre  again.  In  1615  he  published  his  Ocho 
Comedias,y  ocho  Entremeses  nuevos.  The  eight  set  pieces 


238  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

are  failures  ;  and  when  the  writer  tries  to  imitate  Lope 
de  Vega,  as  in  the  Laberinto  de  Amor,  the  failure  is  con- 
spicuous. Nor  does  the  introduction  of  a  Saavedra 
among  the  personages  of  El  Gallardo  Espailol  save  a 
bad  play.  But  Cervantes  believed  in  his  eight  comedias, 
as  he  believed  in  the  eight  entremeses  which  are  imitated 
from  Lope  de  Rueda.  These  are  sprightly,  unpreten- 
tious farces,  witty  in  intention  and  effect,  interesting  in 
themselves  and  as  realistic  pictures  of  low  life  seen  and 
rendered  at  first  hand.  Of  these  farcical  pieces  one, 
Pedro  de  Urdemalas,  is  even  brilliant. 

While  Cervantes  was  writing  the  fifty-ninth  chapter  of 
Don  Quixote's  Second  Part,  he  learned  that  a  spurious 
continuation  had  appeared  (1614)  at  Tarragona  under 
the  name  of  Alonso  Fernandez  de  Avellaneda.  This 
has  given  rise  to  much  angry  writing.  Avellaneda  is 
doubtless  a  pseudonym.  The  King's  confessor,  Aliaga, 
has  been  suspected,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  once 
nicknamed  Sancho  Panza,  and  that  he  thus  avenged 
himself  :  the  idea  is  absurd,  and  the  fact  that  Avellaneda 
makes  Sancho  more  offensive  and  more  vulgar  than 
ever  puts  the  theory  out  of  court.  Lope  de  Vega  is  also 
accused  of  being  Avellaneda,  and  the  charge  is  based  on 
this :  that  (in  a  private  letter)  he  once  spoke  slightingly 
of  Don  Quixote,  The  personal  relations  between  the  two 
greatest  Spanish  men  of  letters  were  not  cordial.  Cer- 
vantes had  ridiculed  Lope  in  the  Prologue  to  Don 
Quixote,  had  belittled  him  as  a  playwright,  and  had 
shown  hostility  in  other  ways.  Lope,  secure  in  his  high 
seat,  made  no  reply,  and  in  1612  (in  another  private 
letter)  he  speaks  kindly  of  Cervantes.  "  Cervantophils  " 
insist  upon  being  too  clever  by  half.  They  first  assert 
that  the  outward  form  of  Avellaneda's  book  was  an 


AVELLANEDA  239 

imitation  of  Don  Quixote,  and  that  the  intention  was  "  to 
pass  off  this  spurious  Second  Part  as  the  true  one "  ; 
they  then  contend  that  Avellaneda's  was  "  a  deliberate 
attempt  to  spoil  the  work  of  Cervantes."  These  two 
statements  are  mutually  destructive :  one  must  necessarily 
be  false.  It  is  also  argued,  first,  that  Avellaneda's  is  a 
worthless  book  ;  next,  that  it  was  written  by  Lope,  the 
greatest  figure,  save  Cervantes,  in  Spanish  literature. 
Lope  had  many  jealous  enemies,  but  no  contemporary 
hints  at  such  a  charge,  and  no  proof  is  offered  in  sup- 
port of  it  now.  Indeed  the  notion,  first  started  by 
Mainez,  is  generally  abandoned.  Other  ascriptions,  in- 
volving Blanco  de  Paz,  Ruiz  de  Alarcdn,  Andres  Perez, 
are  equally  futile.  The  most  plausible  conjecture,  due 
to  D.  Marcelino  Menendez  y  Pelayo,  is  that  Avellaneda 
was  a  certain  Aragonese,  Alfonso  Lamberto.  Lamberto's 
very  obscurity  favours  this  surmise.  Had  Avellaneda 
been  a  figure  of  great  importance,  he  had  been  unmasked 
by  Cervantes  himself,  who  assuredly  was  no  coward. 

We  owe  to  Avellaneda  a  clever,  brutal,  cynical,  amus- 
ing book,  which  is  still  reprinted.  Nor  is  this  our  only 
debt  to  him  :  he  put  an  end  to  Cervantes'  dawdling  and 
procured  the  publication  of  the  second  Don  Quixote. 
Cervantes  left  it  doubtful  if  he  meant  to  write  the  sequel ; 
he  even  seems  to  invite  another  to  undertake  it.  Nine 
years  had  passed,  during  which  Cervantes  made  no  sign. 
Avellaneda,  with  an  eye  to  profit,  wrote  his  continuation 
in  good  faith,  and  his  insolent  Preface  is  explained  by  his 
rage  at  seeing  the  bread  taken  out  of  his  mouth  when  the 
true  sequel  was  announced  in  the  Preface  to  the  Novelas. 
Had  not  his  intrusion  stung  Cervantes  to  the  quick,  the 
second  Don  Quixote  might  have  met  the  fate  of  the  second 
Galatea — promised  for  thirty  years  and  never  finished. 


240  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

As  it  is,  the  hurried  close  of  the  Second  Part  is  below  the 
writer's  common  level,  as  when  he  rages  at  Avellaneda, 
and  wishes  that  the  latter's  book  be  "  cast  into  the  lowest 
pit  of  hell."  But  this  is  its  single  fault,  which,  for  the 
rest,  is  only  found  in  the  last  fourteen  chapters.  The 
previous  fifty-eight  form  an  almost  impeccable  master- 
piece. As  an  achievement  in  style,  the  Second  excels 
the  First  Part.  The  parody  of  chivalresque  books  is  less 
insistent,  the  interest  is  larger,  the  variety  of  episode  is 
ampler,  the  spirit  more  subtly  comic,  the  new  characters 
are  more  convincing,  the  manner  is  more  urbane,  more 
assured.  Cervantes'  First  Part  was  an  experiment  in 
which  he  himself  but  half  believed  ;  in  the  Second  he 
shows  the  certainty  of  an  accepted  master,  confident  of 
his  intention  and  his  popularity.  So  his  career  closed 
in  a  blaze  of  triumph.  He  had  other  works  in  hand  : 
a  play  to  be  called  El  Engano  d  los  Ojos,  the  Semanas 
del  Jar  din,  the  Famoso  Bernardo,  and  the  eternal  second 
Galatea.  These  last  three  he  promises  in  the  Preface  to 
Los  Trabajos  de  Persiles  y  Sigismunda  (1617),  a  pos- 
thumous volume  "that  dares  to  vie  with  Heliodorus," 
and  was  to  be  "  the  best  or  worst  book  ever  written  in 
our  tongue."  Ambitious  in  aim  and  in  manner,  the 
Persiles  has  failed  to  interest,  for  all  its  adventures  and 
scapes.  Yet  it  contains  perhaps  the  finest,  and  cer- 
tainly the  most  pathetic  passage  that  Cervantes  ever 
penned — the  noble  dedication  to  his  patron,  the  Conde 
de  Lemos,  signed  upon  April  19,  1616.  In  the  last  grip 
of  dropsy,  he  gaily  quotes  from  a  romance  remembered 
from  long  ago  : — 

"  Puesio  ya  el  pit  en  el  estribo  " — 
"  One  foot  already  in  the  stirrup."     With  these  words  he 


LOPE  DE  VEGA  241 

smilingly  confronts  fate,  and  makes  him  ready  for  the 
last  post  down  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow.  He  died  on 
April  23,  nominally  on  the  same  day  as  Shakespeare, 
whose  death  is  dated  by  an  unreformed  calendar.  They 
were  brethren  in  their  lives  and  afterwards.  Montes- 
quieu, in  the  Lettres  Persanes,  makes  Rica  say  of  the 
Spaniards  that  "  le  seul  de  leurs  livres  qui  soit  bon  est 
celui  qui  a  fait  voir  la  ridicule  de  tous  les  autres."  If 
he  meant  that  Don  Quixote  was  the  one  Spanish  book 
which  has  found  acceptance  all  the  world  over,  he 
spoke  with  equal  truth  and  point.  A  single  author  at 
once  national  and  universal  is  as  much  as  any  literature 
can  hope  to  boast. 

In  his  own  day  Cervantes  was  shone  down  by  the 
ample,  varied,  magnificent  gifts  of  LOPE  FELIX  DE  VEGA 
CARPIO  (1562-1635) :  a  very  "prodigy  of  nature,"  as  his 
rival  confesses.  A  prodigy  he  was  from  his  cradle.  At 
the  age  of  five  he  lisped  in  numbers,  and,  unable  to  write, 
would  bribe  his  schoolmates  with  a  share  of  his  break- 
fast to  take  down  verses  at  his  dictation.  He  came  of 
noble  highland  blood,  his  father,  Felix  de  Vega,  and  his 
mother,  Francisca  Fernandez,  being  natives  of  Carriedo. 
Born  in  Madrid,  he  was  there  educated  at  the  Jesuit 
Colegio  Imperial,  of  which  he  was  the  wonder.  All  the 
accomplishments  were  his  :  still  a  child,  he  filled  his 
copy-books  with  verses,  sang,  danced,  handled  the  foil 
like  a  trained  sworder.  His  father,  a  poet  of  some  ac- 
complishment, died  early,  and  Lope  forthwith  determined 
to  see  the  world.  With  his  comrade,  Hernando  Muftoz, 
he  ran  away  from  school.  The  pair  reached  Astorga, 
and  turned  back  to  Segovia,  where,  being  short  of  money, 
they  tried  to  sell  a  chain  to  a  jeweller,  who,  suspecting 
something  to  be  wrong,  informed  the  local  Dogberry. 


242  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

The  adventurous  couple  were  sent  home  in  charge  of 
the  police.  Lope's  earliest  surviving  play,  El  verdadero 
Amante,  written  in  his  thirteenth  year,  is  included  in 
the  fourteenth  volume  of  his  theatre,  printed  in  1620. 
Nicolas  de  los  Rfos,  one  of  the  best  actor-managers  of 
his  time,  was  proud  to  play  in  it  later  ;  and,  crude  as  it  is 
in  phrasing,  it  manifests  an  astonishing  dramatic  gift. 

The  chronology  of  Lope's  youth  is  perplexing,  and  the 
events  of  this  time  are,  as  a  rule,  wrongly  given  by 
his  biographers,  even  including  that  admirable  scholar, 
Cayetano  Alberto  de  la  Barrera  y  Leirado,  whose  Nueva 
Biografia  is  almost  above  praise.  In  a  poetic  epistle  to 
Luis  de  Haro,  Lope  asserts  that  he  fought  at  Terceira 
against  the  Portuguese:  "in  my  third  lustre" — en  tres 
lustros  de  mi  edad  primera :  and  Ticknor  is  puzzled  to 
reconcile  this  with  facts.  It  cannot  be  done.  Lope  was 
fifteen  in  1577,  and  the  expedition  to  the  Azores  occurred 
in  1582.  The  obvious  explanation  is  that  Lope  was  in 
his  fourth  lustre,  but  that,  as  cuatro  would  break  the 
rhythm  of  the  line,  he  wrote  tres  instead.  Some  little 
licence  is  admitted  in  verse,  and  literal  interpreters  are 
peculiarly  liable  to  error.  At  the  same  time,  it  should 
be  said  that  Lope  is  coquettish  as  regards  his  age. 
Thus,  he  says  that  he  was  a  child  at  the  time  of  the 
Armada,  being  really  twenty-six ;  and  that  he  wrote  the 
Dragontea  in  early  youth,  when,  in  fact,  he  was  thirty- 
five.  This  little  vanity  has  led  to  endless  confusion.  It 
is  commonly  stated  that,  on  Lope's  return  from  the 
Azores,  he  entered  the  household  of  GenSnimo  Manrique, 
Bishop  of  Avila,  who  sent  him  to  Alcala  de  Henares. 
That  Lope  studied  at  Alcala  is  certain  ;  but  under- 
graduates then  matriculated  earlier  than  they  do  now. 
When  Lope's  first  campaign  ended  he  was  twenty-one, 


i 


LOPE  THE  SOLDIER  243 

and  therefore  too  old  for  college.  He  was  a  Bachelor 
before  ever  he  went  to  the  wars.  The  love-affair,  re- 
counted in  his  Dorotea,  is  commonly  said  to  have  pre- 
vented his  taking  orders  at  Alcala  :  in  truth,  he  never 
saw  the  lady  till  he  came  back  from  the  Azores !  He 
became  private  secretary  to  Antonio  Alvarez  de  Toledo  y 
Beaumont,  fifth  Duque  de  Alba,  and  grandson  of  the 
great  soldier ;  but  the  date  cannot  be  given  precisely. 
As  far  back  as  1572  he  had  translated  Claudian's  Rape  of 
Proserpine  into  Castilian  verse,  and  we  have  already 
seen  him  joined  with  Cervantes  in  penning  compliment- 
ary sonnets  for  Padilla  and  L6pez  Maldonado(i584).  It 
may  be  that,  while  in  Alba's  service,  he  wrote  the  poems 
printed  in  Pedro  de  Moncayo's  Flor  de  varios  romances 

(1589). 
The  history  of  these  years  is  obscure.     It  is  usually 

asserted  that,  while  in  Alba's  service,  about  the  year 
1584-5,  Lope  married,  and  that  he  was  soon  afterwards 
exiled  to  Valencia,  whence  he  set  out  for  Lisbon  to  join 
the  Invincible  Armada.  This  does  not  square  with  Lope's 
statement  in  the  Dedication  of  Querer  la  propia  Desdicha 
to  Claudio  Conde.  There  he  alleges  that  Conde  helped 
him  out  of  prison  in  Madrid,  a  service  repaid  by  his 
helping  Conde  out  of  the  Serranos  prison  at  Valencia, 
and  he  goes  on  to  say  that  "  before  the  first  down  was 
on  their  cheeks  "  they  went  to  Lisbon  to  embark  on  the 
Armada.  He  nowhere  alleges  that  they  started  from 
Valencia,  or  that  the  journey  followed  the  banishment. 
In  an  eclogue  to  the  same  Conde,  Lope  avers  that  he 
joined  the  Armada  to  escape  from  Filis  (otherwise 
Dorotea),  and  he  adds  : — "  Who  could  have  thought  that, 
returning  from  the  war,  I  should  find  a  sweet  wife  ? " 
The  question  would  be  pointless  if  Lope  were  already 


244  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

married.  Moreover,  Barrera's  theory  that  the  intrigue 
with  Dorotea  ended  in  1584  is  disproved  by  the  fact  that 
the  Dorotea  contains  allusions  to  the  Conde  de  Melgar's 
marriage,  which,  as  we  know  from  Cabrera,  took  place 
in  1587.  What  is  certain  is  that  Lope  went  aboard  the 
San  Juan,  and  that  during  the  Armada  expedition  hz 
used  his  manuscript  verses  in  Filis's  praise  for  gun- 
wads. 

He  was  a  first-class  fighting-man,  and  played  his  part 
in  the  combats  up  the  Channel,  where  his  brother  was 
killed  beside  him  during  an  encounter  between  the  San 
Juan  and  eight  Dutch  vessels.  Disaster  never  quenched 
his  spirit  nor  stayed  his  pen ;  for,  when  what  was  left  of 
the  defeated  Armada  returned  to  Cadiz,  he  landed  with 
the  greater  part  of  his  Hermosura  de  Angelica — eleven 
thousand  verses,  written  between  storm  and  battle,  in 
continuation  of  the  Orlando  Furioso.  First  published  in 
1602,  the  Angelica  comes  short  of  Ariosto's  epic  nobility, 
and  is  unrelieved  by  the  Italian's  touch  of  ironic  fantasy. 
Nor  can  it  be  called  successful  even  as  a  sequel  :  its 
very  wealth  of  invention,  its  redundant  episodes  and 
innumerable  digressions,  contribute  to  its  failure.  But 
the  verse  is  singularly  brilliant  and  effective,  while  the 
skill  with  which  the  writer  handles  proper  names  is 
almost  Miltonic. 

Returned  to  Spain,  Lope  composed  his  pastoral  novel, 
the  Arcadia,  which,  however,  remained  unpublished  till 
1598.  Ticknor  believed  it  "to  have  been  written  almost 
immediately "  after  Cervantes'  Galatea :  this  cannot  be, 
for  the  Arcadia  refers  to  the  death  of  Santa  Cruz,  which 
occurred  in  1588,  and  it  discusses  in  the  conventional 
manner  Alba's  love-affairs  of  1589-90.  The  Arcadia, 
where  Lope  figures  as  Belardo,  and  Alba  as  Amfris 


tnso, 


THE  DRAGONTEA  245 

makes  no  pretence  to  be  a  transcript  of  manners  or  life, 
and  it  is  intolerably  prolix  withal.  Yet  it  goes  beyond 
its  fellows  by  virtue  of  its  vivid  landscapes,  its  graceful, 
flowing  verse,  and  a  certain  rich,  poetic,  Latinized  prose, 
here  used  by  Lope  with  as  much  artistry  as  he  showed 
in  his  management  of  the  more  familiar  kind  in  the 
Dorotea.  Its  popularity  is  proved  by  the  publication  of 
fifteen  editions  in  its  author's  lifetime.  About  the  year 
1590  he  married  Isabel  de  Urbina,  a  distant  connection 
of  Cervantes'  mother,  and  daughter  of  Felipe  II.'s  King- 
at-Arms.  Hereupon  followed  a  duel,  wherein  Lope 
wounded  his  adversary,  and,  earlier  escapades  being 
raked  up,  he  was  banished  the  capital.  He  spent  some 
time  in  Valencia,  a  considerable  literary  centre ;  but  in 
1594  he  signed  the  manuscript  of  his  play,  El  Maestro  de 
danzar,  at  Tormes,  Alba's  estate,  whence  it  is  inferred  that 
he  was  once  more  in  the  Duke's  service.  A  new  love- 
affair  with  Antonia  Trillo  de  Armenta  brought  legal 
troubles  upon  him  in  1596.  His  wife  apparently  died 
in  1597. 

The  first  considerable  work  printed  with  Lope's  name 
upon  the  title-page  was  his  Dragontea  (1598),  an  epic 
poem  in  ten  cantos  on  the  last  cruise  and  death  of 
Francis  Drake.  We  naturally  love  to  think  of  the  mighty 
seaman  as  the  patriot,  the  chiefest  of  Britannia's  bulwarks, 
as  he  figures  in  Mr.  Newbolt's  spirited  ballad : — 

"Drake  lies  in  his  hammock  till  the  great  Armadas  come  .  .  . 
Slung  at-ween  the  round  shot,  listeniri  for  the  drum  .  .  . 
Call  him  on  the  deep  sea,  call  him  up  the  Sound, 

Call  him  when  ye  sail  to  meet  the  foe; 
Where  the  old  trades  plyirf  and  the  oldjlagflyin\ 

They  shall  find  him  *ware  an'  waking,  as  they  found  him  long  ago" 

Odd  to  say,  though,  Lope  has  been  censured  for  not 


246  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

viewing  Drake  through  English  Protestant  spectacles. 
Seeing  that  he  was  a  good  Catholic  Spaniard  whom  Drake 
had  drummed  up  the  Channel,  it  had  been  curious  if  the 
Dragontea  were  other  than  it  is  :  a  savage  denunciation 
of  that  Babylonian  Dragon,  that  son  of  the  devil  whose 
piracies  had  tormented  Spain  during  thirty  years.  The 
Dragontea  fails  not  because  of  its  national  spirit,  which 
is  wholly  admirable,  but  because  of  its  excessive  emphasis 
and  its  abuse  of  allegory.  Its  author  scarcely  intended 
it  for  great  poetry  ;  but,  as  a  patriotic  screed,  it  fulfilled 
its  purpose,  and,  when  reprinted,  it  drew  an  approving 
sonnet  from  Cervantes. 

The  Dragontea  was  written  while  Lope  was  in  the 
household  of  the  Marque's  de  Malpica,  whence  he  passed 
as  secretary  to  the  lettered  Marque's  de  Sarria,  best 
known  as  Conde  de  Lemos,  and  as  Cervantes'  patron. 
In  1599  he  published  his  devout  and  graceful  poem, 
San  Isidro,  in  honour  of  Madrid's  patron  saint.  Popular 
in  subject  and  execution,  the  San  Isidro  enabled  him  to 
repeat  in  verse  the  triumph  which  he  had  achieved  with 
the  prose  of  the  Arcadia.  From  this  day  forward  he 
was  the  admitted  pontiff  of  Spanish  literature.  His 
marriage  with  Juana  de  Guardo  probably  dates  from 
the  year  1600.  An  example  of  Lope's  art  in  manipulating 
the  sonnet-form  is  afforded  by  Longfellow's  Englishing 
of  The  Brook  :— 

"  Laugh  of  the  mountain  !  lyre  of  bird  and  tree  / 

Pomp  of  the  meadow  !  mirror  of  the  morn! 

The  soul  of  April,  unto  whom  are  born 
The  rose  and  jessamine,  leaps  wild  in  thee  ! 
Although,  wherever  thy  devious  current  strays, 

The  lap  of  earth  with  gold  and  silver  teems, 

To  me  thy  clear  proceeding  brigJiter  seems 
Than  golden  sands  that  charm  each  shepherd's  gaze. 


LOPE'S  SONNETS  247 

How  without  guile  thy  bosom,  all  transparent 

As  the  pure  crystal,  lets  the  curious  eye 

Thy  secrets  scan,  thy  smooth,  round  pebbles  count ! 
How,  without  malice  murmuring,  glides  thy  current! 

0  sweet  simplicity  of  days  gone  by  ! 

Thou  shurist  the  haunts  of  man,  to  dwell  in  limpid 'fount '/" 

Two  hundred  sonnets  in  Lope's  Rimas  are  thought  to 
have  been  issued  separately  in  1602  :  in  any  case,  they 
were  published  that  year  at  the  end  of  a  reprint  of  the 
Angelica.  They  include  much  of  the  writer's  sincerest 
work,  earnest  in  feeling,  skilful  and  even  distinguished 
as  art.  One  sonnet  of  great  beauty — To  the  Tomb  of 
Teodora  Urbina — has  led  Ticknor  into  an  amusing  error 
often  reproduced.  He  cites  from  it  a  line  upon  the 
"heavenly  likeness  of  my  Belisa,"  notes  that  this  name  is 
an  anagram  of  Isabel  (Lope's  first  wife),  and  pronounces 
the  performance  a  lament  for  the  poet's  mother-in-law. 
The  Latin  epitaph  which  follows  it  contains  a  line, — 

" Exactis  nondum  complevit  mensibus  annum" — 

showing  that  the  supposed  mother-in-law  died  in  her 
first  year.  Manifestly  the  sonnet  refers  to  the  writer's 
daughter,  and,  as  always  happens  when  Lope  speaks 
from  his  paternal  heart,  is  instinct  with  a  passionate 
tenderness. 

To  1604  belong  the  five  prose  books  of  the  Peregrino  en 
su  patria,  a  prose  romance  of  Panfilo's  adventures  by  sea 
and  land,  partly  experienced  and  partly  contrived  ;  but  it 
is  most  interesting  for  the  four  autos  which  it  includes, 
and  for  its  bibliographical  list  of  two  hundred  and  thirty 
plays  already  written  by  the  author.  His  quenchless 
ambition  had  led  him  to  rival  Ariosto  in  the  Angelica: 
in  the  twenty  cantos  of  his  Jerusalen  Conquistada  he 

dares   no  less  greatly  by   challenging  Tasso.     Written 
17 


248  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

in  1605,  the  Jerusalen  was  withheld  till  1609.  Styled 
a  "  tragic  epic "  by  its  creator,  it  is  no  more  than  a 
fluent  historico-narrative  poem,  overlaid  with  embellish- 
ments of  somewhat  cheap  and  obvious  design.  In  1612 
appeared  the  Four  Soliloquies  of  Lope  de  Vega  Carpio : 
his  lament  and  tears  while  kneeling  before  a  crucifix  begging 
pardon  for  his  sins.  These  four  sets  of  redondillas  with 
their  prose  commentaries  were  amplified  to  seven  when 
republished  (1626)  under  the  pseudonym  of  Gabriel 
Padecopeo,  an  obvious  anagram.  The  deaths  of  Lope's 
wife  and  of  his  son  Carlos  inspired  the  Pastores  de  Bel/n, 
a  sacred  pastoral  of  supreme  simplicity,  truth,  and 
beauty — as  Spanish  as  Spain  herself — which  contains 
one  of  the  sweetest  numbers  in  Castilian.  The  Virgin 
lulls  the  Divine  Child  with  a  song  in  Verstegan's  manner, 
which  Ticknor  has  rendered  to  this  effect : — 

"  Holy  angels  and  blest, 

Through  those  palms  as  ye  sweep 
Hold  their  branches  at  rest, 
For  my  babe  is  asleep. 

And  ye  Bethlehem  palm-trees^ 

As  stormy  winds  rush 
In  tempest  and  fury, 

Your  angry  noise  hush; 
More  gently,  more  gently, 

Restrain  your  wild  sweep  j 
Hold  your  branches  at  rest, 

My  babe  is  asleep. 

My  babe  all  divine, 

With  earths  sorrows  oppressed^ 
Seeks  in  slumber  an  instant 

His  grievings  to  rest; 
He  slumbers,  he  slumbers, 

Oh,  hush,  then,  and  keep 
Your  branches  all  still, 

My  babe  is  asleep  ! 


LOPE  THE  PRIEST  249 

Cold  blasts  wheel  about  kirn, 

A  rigorous  storm, 
And  ye  see  how,  in  vain, 

I  would  skelter  his  form. 
Holy  angels  and  blest, 

As  above  me  ye  sweep, 
Hold  these  branches  at  rest, 

My  babe  is  asleep ! " 

Lope  lived  a  life  of  gallantry,  and  troubled  his  wife's 
last  years  by  his  intrigue  with  Marfa  de  Lujan.  This 
lady  bore  him  the  gifted  son,  Lope  Felix,  who  was 
drowned  at  sea,  and  the  daughter  Marcela,  whose 
admirable  verses,  written  after  her  profession  in  the 
Convent  of  Barefoot  Trinitarians,  proclaim  her  kinship 
with  the  great  enchanter.  A  relapsing,  carnal  sinner, 
Lope  was  more  weak  than  bad :  his  rare  intellectual 
gifts,  his  renown,  his  overwhelming  temperament,  his 
seductive  address,  his  imperial  presence,  led  him  into 
temptation.  Amid  his  follies  and  sins  he  preserved 
a  touching  faith  in  the  invisible,  and  his  devotion 
was  always  ardent.  Upon  the  death  of  his  wife  in  1612 
or  later,  he  turned  to  religion  with  characteristic  im- 
petuosity, was  ordained  priest,  and  said  his  first  mass 
in  1614  at  the  Carmelite  Church  in  Madrid.  It  was  an 
ill-advised  move.  Ticknor,  indeed,  speaks  of  a  "  Lope, 
,  no  longer  at  an  age  to  be  deluded  by  his  passions "  ; 
but  no  such  Lope  is  known  to  history.  While  a 
Familiar  of  the  Inquisition  the  true  Lope  wrote  love- 
letters  for  the  loose -living  Duque  de  Sessa,  till  at 
last  his  confessor  threatened  to  deny  him  absolution. 
Nor  is  this  all :  his  intrigue  with  Marta  de  Nevares 
Santoyo,  wife  of  Roque  Hernandez  de  Ayala,  was 
notorious.  The  pious  Cervantes  publicly  jeered  at  the 
fallen  priest's  "continuous  and  virtuous  occupation," 


250  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

forgetting  his  own  coarse  pranks  with  Ana  de  Rojas ; 
and  G6ngora  hounded  his  master  down  with  a  copy 
of  venomous  verses  passed  from  hand  to  hand.  Those 
who  wish  to  study  the  abasement  of  an  august  spirit 
may  do  so  in  the  filtimos  Amores  de  Lope  de  Vega 
Carpio,  forty-eight  letters  published  by  Jos6  Ibero  Ribas 
y  Canfranc.1  If  they  judge  by  the  standard  of  Lope's 
time,  they  will  deal  gently  with  a  miracle  of  genius, 
unchaste  but  not  licentious ;  like  that  old  Dumas,  who, 
in  the  matters  of  gaiety,  energy,  and  strength  is  his 
nearest  modern  compeer.  His  sin  was  yet  to  find  him 
out.  He  vanquished  every  enemy :  the  child  of  his  old 
age  vanquished  him. 

Devotion  and  love-affairs  served  not  to  stay  his  pen. 
His  Triunfo  de  la  fe  en  el  Japdn  (1618)  is  interesting 
as  an  example  of  Lope's  practice  in  the  school  of 
historical  prose,  stately,  devout,  and  elegant.  In  honour 
of  Isidore,  beatified  and  then  canonised,  he  presided 
at  the  poetic  jousts  of  1620  and  1622,  witnessing  the 
triumph  of  his  son,  Fe"lix  Lope  ;  standing  literary  god- 
father to  the  boyish  Calderon  ;  declaiming,  in  the  char- 
acter of  Tome  Burguillos,  the  inimitable  verse  which 
hit  between  wind  and  water.  Perhaps  Lope  was  never 
happier  than  in  this  opportunity  of  speaking  his  own 
witty  lines  before  the  multitude.  His  noble  person, 
his  facility,  his  urbane  condescension,  his  incomparable 
voice,  which  thrilled  even  clowns  when  he  intoned  his 
mass — all  these  gave  him  the  stage  as  his  own  posses- 
sion. Heretofore  the  common  man  had  only  read  him: 

1  This  is  taken  by  all  English  writers,  and  appears  in  the  British  Museum 
Catalogue,  as  a  real  name.  I  only  reveal  an  open  secret  if  I  point  out  that 
it  is  a  perfect  anagram  for  Francisco  Asenjo  Barbieri,  the  excellent  scholar  to 
whom  we  owe  the  Cancionero  musical  de  lot  siglos  xv.  y  xvi.  and  the  new 
edition  of  Encina's  theatre. 


THE  FILOMENA  251 

once  seen  and  heard,  Lope  ruled  Castilian  literature  as 
Napoleon  ruled  France. 

His  Filomena  (1621)  contains  a  poetic  defence  of  him- 
self (the  Nightingale)  against  Pedro  de  Torres  Ramila 
(the  Thrush),  who,  in  1617,  had  violently  attacked  Lope 
in  his  Spongia,  which  seems  to  have  vanished,  and  is 
only  known  by  extracts  embodied  in  the  Expostulatio 
Spongicz,  written  by  Francisco  L6pez  de  Aguilar  Coutino 
under  the  name  of  Julius  Columbarius.  Polemics  apart, 
the  chief  interest  of  the  Filomena  volume  lies  in  its  short 
prose  story,  Las  Fortunas  de  Diana,  an  experiment  which 
the  author  repeated  in  the  three  tales — La  Desdicha  por 
la  honra,  La  prudente  Venganza,  and  Guzman  el  Bravo 
— appended  to  his  Circe  (1624),  a  poem,  in  three  cantos, 
on  Ulysses  his  adventures.  The  five  cantos  of  the 
Triunfos  divinos  are  pious  exercises  in  the  Petrarchan 
manner,  with  forty-four  sonnets  given  as  a  postscript. 
Five  cantos  go  to  make  up  the  Corona  Trdgica  (1627), 
a  religious  epic  with  Mary  Stuart  for  heroine.  Lope  has 
been  absurdly  censured  for  styling  Queen  Elizabeth  a 
Jezebel  and  an  Athaliah,  and  for  regarding  Mary  as  a 
Catholic  martyr.  This  criticism  implies  a  strange  intel- 
lectual confusion  ;  as  though  a  veteran  of  the  Armada 
could  be  expected  to  write  in  the  spirit  of  a  Clapham 
Evangelical  !  Religious  squabbles  apart,  he  had  an  old 
score  to  settle  ;  for — 

"  Where  are  the  galleons  of  Spain?" 

was  a  question  which  troubled  good  Spaniards  as 
much  as  it  delighted  Mr.  Dobson.  Dedicated  to  Pope 
Urban  VIII.,  the  poem  won  for  its  author  the  Cross 
of  St.  John  and  the  title  of  Doctor  of  Divinity.  Three 
years  later  he  issued  his  Laurel  de  Apolo,  a  cloying 


252  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

eulogy  on  some  three  hundred  poets,  as  remarkable  for 
its  omissions  as  for  its  flattering  of  nonentities.  The 
Dorotea  (1632),  a  prose  play  fashioned  after  the  model 
of  the  Celestina,  was  one  of  Lope's  favourites,  and  is 
interesting,  not  merely  for  its  graceful,  familiar  style, 
retouched  and  polished  for  over  thirty  years,  but  as  a 
piece  of  self-revelation.  The  Rimas  del  licenciado  Tomd 
de  Burguillos  (1634)  closes  with  the  mock-heroic  Gato- 
maquia,  a  vigorous  and  brilliant  travesty  of  the  Italian 
epics,  replenished  with  such  gay  wit  as  suffices  to  keep  it 
sweet  for  all  time. 

Lope  de  Vega's  career  was  drawing  to  its  end.  The 
elopement,  with  a  court  gallant,  of  his  daughter,  Antonia 
Clara,  broke  him  utterly.1  He  sank  into  melancholy, 
sought  to  expiate  by  lashing  himself  with  the  discipline 
till  the  walls  of  his  room  were  flecked  with  his  blood. 
Withal  he  wrote  to  the  very  end.  On  August  23,  1635, 
s  he  composed  his  last  poem,  El  Siglo  de  Oro.  Four  days 
later  he  was  dead.  Madrid  followed  him  to  his  grave, 
and  the  long  procession  turned  from  the  direct  path 
to  pass  before  the  window  of  the  convent  where  his 
daughter,  Sor  Marcela,  was  a  nun.  A  hundred  and 
fifty-three  Spanish  authors  bewailed  the  Phoenix  in  the 
Fama  pdstuma,  and  fifty  Italians  published  their  laments 
at  Venice  under  the  title  of  Essequie  poetiche. 

Lope  left  no  achievement  unattempted :  the  epic, 
Homeric  or  Italian,  the  pastoral,  the  romantic  novel, 
poems  narrative  and  historical,  countless  eclogues, 
epistles,  not  to  speak  of  short  tales,  of  sonnets  innu- 
merable, of  verses  dashed  off  on  the  least  occasion.  His 

1  The  seducer  is  conjectured  to  be  Olivares'  son-in-law,  the  Duque  de 
Medina  de  las  Torres. 


LOPE'S  VERSATILITY  253 

voluminous  private  letters,  full  of  wit  and  malice  and 
risky  anecdote,  are  as  brilliant  and  amusing  as  they  are 
unedifying.  It  is  sometimes  alleged  that  he  deliberately 
capped  Cervantes'  work ;  and,  as  instances  in  this  sort, 
we  are  bid  to  note  that  the  Galatea  was  followed  by 
Dorotea,  the  Viaje  del  Parnaso  by  the  Laurel  de  Apolo. 
In  the  first  place,  exclusive  "spheres  of  influence"  are 
not  recognised  in  literature  ;  in  the  second,  the  observa- 
tion is  pointless.  The  Galatea  is  a  pastoral  novel,  the 
Dorotea  is  not;  the  first  was  published  in  1585,  the 
second  in  1632.  Again,  the  Viaje  del  Parnaso  appeared 
in  1614,  the  Laurel  de  Apolo  in  1630.  The  first  model 
was  the  Canto  del  Turia  of  Gil  Polo.  It  would  be  as 
reasonable — that  is  to  say,  it  would  be  the  height  of 
unreason — to  argue  that  Persiles  y  Sigismunda  was  an 
attempt  to  cap  the  Peregrino  en  su  patria.  The  truth 
is,  that  Lope  followed  every  one  who  made  a  hit : 
Heliodorus,  Petrarch,  Ariosto,  Tasso.  A  frank  success 
spurred  him  to  rivalry,  and  the  difficulty  of  repeating 
it  was  for  him  a  fresh  stimulus.  Obstacles  existed  to  be 
vanquished.  He  was  ever  ready  to  accept  a  challenge  ; 
hence  such  a  dexterous  tour  deforce  as  his  famous  Sonnet 
on  a  Sonnet ',  imitated  in  a  well-known  rondeau  by  Voiture, 
translated  again  and  again,  and  by  none  more  successfully 
than  by  Mr.  Gibson  : — 

"  To  "write  a  sonnet  doth  Juana  press  me, 

I've  never  found  me  in  such  stress  and  pain  j 
A  sonnet  numbers  fourteen  lines  'tis  plain, 
And  three  are  gone  ere  I  can  say,  God  bless  me  / 
/  thought  that  spinning  rhymes  might  sore  oppress  me, 
Yet  here  Fin  midway  in  the  last  quatrain; 
And,  if  the  foremost  tercet  I  can  gain, 
The  quatrains  need  not  any  more  distress  me. 


254  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

To  the  first  tercet  I  have  got  at  last, 
And  travel  through  it  with  such  right  good-will. 
That  with  this  line  I've  finished  it,  /  ween. 

I'm  in  the  second 'now ',  and  see  how  fast 

The  thirteenth  line  comes  tripping  from  my  quill — 
Hurrah,  'tis  done  !     Count  if  there  be  fourteen  /  " 

The  foregoing  list  of  Lope's  exploits  in  literature,  cur- 
tailed as  it  is,  suffices  for  fame  ;  but  it  would  not  suffice 
to  explain  that  matchless  popularity  which  led  to  the 
publication — suppressed  by  the  Inquisition  in  1647 — of  a 
creed  beginning  thus  : — "  I  believe  in  Lope  de  Vega  the 
Almighty,  the  Poet  of  heaven  and  earth."  So  far  we  have 
but  reached  the  threshold  of  his  temple.  His  unique 
renown  is  based  upon  the  fact  that  he  created  a  national 
theatre,  that  he  did  for  Spain  what  Shakespeare  did  for 
England.  G6mez  Manrique  and  Encina  led  the  way 
gropingly  ;  Torres  Naharro,  though  he  bettered  all  that 
had  been  done,  lived  out  of  Spain  ;  Lope  de  Rueda  and 
Timoneda  brought  the  drama  to  the  people  ;  Artieda, 
Virues,  Argensola,  and  Cervantes  tore  their  passions  to 
tatters  in  conformity  with  their  own  strange  precepts, 
which  the  last-named  would  have  enforced  by  a  literary 
dictatorship.  Moreover,  Argensola  and  the  three  veterans 
of  Lepanto  wrote  to  please  themselves :  Lope  invented  a 
new  art  to  enchant  mankind.  And  he  succeeded  beyond 
all  ambition.  Nor  does  he  once  take  on  the  airs  of 
philosopher  or  pedant  :  rather,  in  a  spirit  of  self- 
mockery,  he  makes  his  confession  in  the  Arte  Nuevo  de 
hacer  Comedias  (New  Mode  of  Playwriting),  which  his 
English  biographer,  Lord  Holland,  translates  in  this 
wise : — 

"  Who  writes  by  rule  must  please  himself  alone, 
Be  damrid  without  remorse,  and  die  unknown. 


LOPE'S  FACILITY  255 

Such  force  has  habit— for  the  untaught  fools, 
Trusting  their  own,  despise  the  ancient  rules. 
Yet  true  it  is,  I  too  have  written  plays. 
The  wiser  few,  who  judge  with  skill,  might  praise  j 
But  when  I  see  how  show  (and  nonsense)  draws 
The  crowds  and — more  than  all — the  fair's  applause, 
Who  still  are  forward  with  indulgent  rage 
To  sanction  every  master  of  the  stage, 
I,  doontd  to  write,  the  public  taste  to  hit, 
Resume  the  barbarous  taste  'twas  vain  to  quit : 
I  lock  up  every  rule  before  I  write, 
Plautus  and  Terence  drive  from  out  my  sight,  .  .  . 
To  vulgar  standards  then  I  square  my  play, 
Writing  at  ease;  for,  since  the  public  pay, 
'Tis  just,  methinks,  we  by  their  compass  steer, 
And  write  the  nonsense  that  they  love  to  hear" 

Thus  Lope  in  his  bantering  avowal  of  1609.  Yet  what 
takes  the  form  of  an  apology  is  in  truth  a  vaunt ;  for  it 
was  Lope's  task  to  tear  off  the  academic  swaddling-bands 
of  his  predecessors,  and  to  enrich  his  country  with  a 
drama  of  her  own.  Nay,  he  did  far  more  :  by  his  single 
effort  he  dowered  her  with  an  entire  dramatic  literature. 
The  very  bulk  of  his  production  savours  of  the  fabulous. 
In  1603  he  had  already  written  over  two  hundred  plays  ; 
in  1609  the  number  was  four  hundred  and  eighty-three  ; 
in  1620  he  confesses  to  nine  hundred  ;  in  1624  he  reaches 
one  thousand  and  seventy  ;  and  in  1632  the  total  amounted 
to  one  thousand  five  hundred.  According  to  Montalban, 
editor  of  the  Fama  ptistuma,  the  grand  total,  omitting 
entremeses,  should  be  one  thousand  eight  hundred  plays, 
and  over  four  hundred  autos.  Of  these  about  four  hun- 
dred plays  and  forty  autos  survive.  If  we  take  the  figures 
as  they  stand,  Lope  de  Vega  wrote  more  than  all  the 
Elizabethan  dramatists  put  together.  Small  wonder  that 
Charles  Fox  was  staggered  when  his  nephew,  Lord 


256  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Holland,  spoke  of  Lope's  twenty  million  lines.  Facility 
and  excellence  are  rarely  found  together,  yet  Lope  com- 
bined both  qualities  in  such  high  degree  that  any  one 
with  enough  Spanish  to  read  him  need  never  pass  a 
dull  moment  so  long  as  he  lives. 

Hazlitt  protests  against  the  story  which  tells  that  Lope 
wrote  a  play  before  breakfast,  and  in  truth  it  rests  on  no 
good  authority.  But  it  is  history  that,  not  once,  but  an 
hundred  times,  he  wrote  a  whole  piece  within  twenty- 
four  hours.  Working  in  these  conditions,  he  must  needs 
have  the  faults  inseparable  from  haste.  He  repeats  his 
thought  with  small  variation  ;  he  utilises  old  solutions 
for  a  dramatic  impasse ;  and  his  phrase  is  too  often  more 
vigorous  than  finished.  But  it  is  not  as  a  master  of 
artistic  detail  that  Lope's  countrymen  place  him  beside 
Cervantes.  First,  and  last,  and  always,  he  is  a  great 
creative  genius.  He  incarnates  the  national  spirit,  adapts 
popular  poetry  to  dramatic  effects,  substitutes  characters 
for  abstractions,  and,  in  a  word,  expresses  the  genius  of 
a  people.  It  is  true  that  he  farely  finds  a  perfect  form 
for  his  utterance,  that  he  constantly  approaches  perfection 
without  quite  attaining  unto  it,  that  his  dramatic  instinct 
exceeds  his  literary  execution.  Yet  he  survives  as  the 
creator  of  an  original  form.  His  successors  improved 
upon  him  in  the  matter  of  polish,  yet  not  one  of  them 
made  an  essential  departure  of  his  own,  not  one  invented 
a  radical  variant  upon  Lope's  method.  Tirso  de  Molina 
may  exceed  him  in  force  of  conception,  as  Ruiz  de 
Alarc6n  outshines  him  in  ethical  significance,  in  exposi- 
tion of  character  ;  yet  Tirso  and  Alarc6n  are  but  develop- 
ing the  doctrine  laid  down  by  the  master  in  El  Castigo 
sin  Venganza — the  lesson  of  truth,  realism,  fidelity  to  the 
actual  usages  of  the  time.  Tirso,  Alarc6n,  and  Calder6n 


LOPE'S  INVENTION  257 

are  a  most  brilliant  progeny ;  but  the  father  of  them  all 
is  the  unrivalled  Lope.  He  seized  upon  what  germs  of 
good  existed  in  Torres  Naharro,  Rueda,  and  Cueva ;  but 
his  debt  to  them  was  small,  and  he  would  have  found  his 
way  without  them.  Without  Lope  we  should  have  had 
no  Tirso,  no  Calderon.1 

Producing  as  he  produced,  much  of  his  work  may  be 
considered  as  improvisation ;  even  so,  he  takes  place 
as  the  first  improvisatore  in  the  world,  and  compels 
recognition  as,  so  to  say,  "a  natural  force  let  loose." 
He  imagined  on  a  Napoleonic  scale ;  he  contrived  inci- 
dent with  such  ease  and  force  and  persuasiveness  as 
make  the  most  of  his  followers  seem  poor  indeed ;  and 
his  ingenuity  of  diversion  is  miraculously  fresh  after 
nearly  three  hundred  years.  His  gift  never  fails  him, 
whether  he  deal  with  historical  tragedy,  with  the  heroic 
legend,  with  the  presentation  of  picaresque  life,  or  with 
the  play  of  intrigue  and  manners — the  comedia  de  capa 
y  espada.  This  last,  "the  cloak  and  sword  play"  is 
as  much  his  personal  invention  as  is  the  gracioso — the 
comic  character — as  is  the  enredo — the  maze  of  plot — as  is 
the  "  point  of  honour,"  as  is  the  feminine  interest  in  his 
best  work.  Hitherto  the  woman  had  been  allotted  a 
secondary,  an  incidental  part,  ludicrous  in  the  entremh, 
sentimental  in  the  set  piece.  Lope,  the  expert  in  gallantry, 
in  manners,  in  observation,  placed  her  in  her  true 
setting,  as  an  ideal,  as  the  mainspring  of  dramatic 
motive  and  of  chivalrous  conduct.  He  professed  an 
abstract  approval  of  the  classic  models ;  but  his  natural 

1  Lope's  popularity  spread  as  far  as  America.  Three  of  his  plays  were 
translated  into  the  nahuatl  dialect  by  Bartolome"  Alba.  See  Jose  Mariano 
Beristain  de  Souza's  Biblioteca  Hispano- Americana  (Mexico,  1816),  voL  L 
p.  64. 


258  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

impulse  was  too  strong  for  him.  An  imitatoi"  he 
could  not  be,  save  in  so  far  as  he,  in  his  own  phrase, 
"  imitated  men's  actions,  and  reproduced  the  manners 
of  the  age."  He  laid  down  rules  which  in  practice  he 
flouted  ;  for  he  realised  that  the  business  of  the  scene 
is  to  hold  an  audience,  is  to  interest,  to  surprise,  to  move. 
He  could  not  thump  a  pulpit  in  an  empty  hall  :  he 
perceived  that  a  play  which  fails  to  attract  is — for  the 
playwright's  purpose  —  a  bad  play.  He  can  be  read 
with  infinite  pleasure ;  yet  he  rarely  attempted  drama 
for  the  closet.  Emotion  in  action  was  his  aim,  and  he 
achieved  it  with  a  certainty  which  places  him  among  the 
greatest  gods  of  the  stage. 

It  is  difficult  to  fix  upon  the  period  when  Lope's 
dramatic  genius  was  accepted  by  his  public :  1592  seems 
a  likely  date.  He  took  no  interest  in  publishing  his 
plays,  though  El  Perseguido  was  issued  by  a  Lisbpn 
pirate  so  early  as  1603.  Eight  volumes  of  his  theatre 
were  in  print  before  he  was  induced  in  1617  to  authorise 
an  edition  which  was  called  the  Ninth  Part,  and  after 
1625  he  printed  no  more  dramatic  pieces,  despite  the 
fact  that  he  produced  them  more  abundantly  than  ever. 
We  may,  perhaps,  assume  that  the  best  of  his  work  has 
reached  us.  Among  the  finest  of  his  earlier  efforts  is 
justly  placed  El  Acero  de  Madrid (The  Madrid  Steel),  from 
which  Moliere  has  borrowed  the  Medecin  malgrf  !ut,  and 
the  opening  scene,  as  Ticknor  renders  it,  admirably 
illustrates  Lope's  power  of  interesting  his  audience  from 
the  very  outset  by  a  situation  which  explains  itself. 
Lisardo,  with  his  friend  Riselo,  enamoured  of  Belisa, 
awaits  the  latter  at  the  church-door,  and,  just  as  Riselo 
declares  that  he  will  wait  no  more,  Belisa  enters  with 
her  pious  aunt,  Teodora,  as  duena : — 


LOPE'S   DIALOGUE  259 

Teodor^    Show  more  of  gentleness  and  modesty  ; 

Of  gentleness  in  walking  quietly, 

Of  modesty  in  looking  only  down 

Upon  the  earth  you  tread. 

Belisa.  '  Tis  what  I  do. 

Teodora,    What  ?   When  you're  looking  straight  towards  that  man? 
Belisa.       Did  you  not  bid  me  look  upon  the  earth  ? 

And  what  is  he  but  just  a  bit  of  it? 
Teodora.  /  said  the  earth  whereon  you  tread,  my  niece. 
Belisa.       But  that  whereon  I  tread  is  hidden  quite 

With  my  own  petticoat  and  walking-dress. 
Teodora.    Words  such  as  these  become  no  well-bred  maid. 

But,  by  your  mother's  blessed  memory, 

r  II  put  an  end  to  all  your  pretty  tricks; — 

What  ?     You  look  back  at  him  again. 

Belisa.  Who?    If 

Teodora.    Yes,  you; — and  make  him  secret  signs  besides. 
Belisa.       Not  I !    'Tis  only  that  you  troubled  me 

With  teasing  questions  and  perverse  replies, 

So  that  I  stumbled  and  looked  round  to  see 

Who  would  prevent  my  fall. 
Riselo  (to  Lisardo).  She  falls  again. 

Be  quick  and  help  her. 
Lisardo  (to  Belisa).  Pardon  me,  lady, 

And  forgive  my  glove. 

Teodora.  Who  ever  saw  the  like  ? 

Belisa.       /  thank  you,  sir;  you  saved  me  from  a  fall. 
Lisardo.    An  angel,  lady,  might  have  fallen  so, 

Or  stars  that  shine  with  heaven's  own  blessed  light. 
Teodora.  /,  too,  can  fall;  but  'tis  upon  your  trick. 

Good  gentleman,  farewell  to  you  ! 
Lisardo.  Madam, 

Your  servant.     (Heaven  save  us  from  such  spleen  /) 
Teodora.  A  pretty  fall  you  made  of it ;  and  now  I  hope 

You'll  be  content,  since  they  assisted  you. 
Belisa.       And  you  no  less  content,  since  now  you  have 

The  means  to  tease  me  for  a  week  to  come. 
Teodora.  But  why  again  do  you  turn  back  your  head? 
Belisa.        Why,  sure  you  think  it  wise  and  wary 

To  notice  well  the  place  I  stumbled  at, 

Lest  I  should  stumble  there  when  next  I  pass. 


260  SPANISH   LITERATURE     . 

Teodora.  Mischief  befall  you  !     But  I  knoiv  your  ways  ! 

You'//  not  deny  this  time  you  looked  upon  the  youth  ? 
Belisa.       Deny  it?     No! 

Teodora.  You  dare  confess  it,  then  ? 

Belisa.       Be  sure  I  dare.      You  saw  him  help  me; 

And  would  you  have  me  fail  to  thank  him  for  it? 
Teodora.  Go  to  !     Come  home !  come  home ! " 

This  is  a  fair  specimen,  even  in  its  sober  English 
dress,  of  Lope's  gallant  dialogue  and  of  his  consummate 
skill  in  gripping  his  subject.  No  playwright  has  ever 
shown  a  more  infallible  tact,  a  more  assured  confidence 
in  his  own  resources.  He  never  attempts  to  puzzle 
his  audience  with  a  dull  acrostic :  complicated  as  his 
plot  may  be  (and  he  loves  to  introduce  a  double  intrigue 
when  the  chance  proffers),  he  exposes  it  at  the  outset 
with  an  obvious  solution  ;  but  not  one  in  twenty  can 
guess  precisely  how  the  solution  is  to  be  attained.  And, 
till  the  last  moment,  his  contagious,  reckless  gaiety,  his 
touches  of  perplexing  irony,  his  vigilant  invention,  help 
to  thrill  and  vivify  the  interest. 

Yet  has  he  all  the  defects  of  his  facility.  In  an  indif- 
ferent mood,  besieged  by  managers  for  more  and  more 
plays,  he  would  set  forth  upon  a  piece,  not  knowing 
what  was  to  be  its  action,  would  indulge  in  a  triple  plot 
of  baffling  complexity  eked  out  by  incredible  episodes. 
Even  his  ingenuity  failed  to  find  escape  from  such 
unprepared  situations.  Still  it  is  fair  to  say  that  such 
instances  are  rare  with  him  :  time  upon  time  his  dra- 
matic instinct  saved  him  where  a  less  notable  inventor 
must  have  succumbed.  He  could  create  character ;  he 
was  an  artist  in  construction  ;  he  knew  what  could,  and 
could  not,  be  done  upon  the  stage.  Like  Dumas,  he 
needed  but  "  four  trestles,  four  boards,  two  actors,  and  a 
passion  "  ;  and,  at  his  best,  he  rises  to  the  greatest  occa- 


LOPE'S   FAULTS  AND  VIRTUES  261 

sion.  In  a  single  scene,  in  an  act  entire,  you  shall  read 
him  with  wonder  and  delight  for  his  force  and  truth  and 
certainty.  Yet  the  trail  of  carelessness  is  upon  his  last 
acts,  and  his  conscience  sometimes  sleeps  ere  his  cur- 
tain falls.  The  fact  that  he  thought  more  of  a  listener 
than  of  ten  readers  comes  home  to  a  constant  student. 
Lope  had  few  theories  as  to  style,  and  he  rarely  aims  at 
sheer  beauty  of  expression,  at  simple  felicity  of  phrase. 
Hence  his  very  cleverness  grows  wearisome  at  last. 
But,  after  all,  he  must  be  judged  by  the  true  historic 
standard  :  his  achievement  must  be  compared  with  what 
preceded,  not  with  what  came  after  him.  Tirso  de 
Molina  and  Calderon  and  Moreto  grew  the  flower  from 
Lope's  seed.  He  took  the  farce  as  Lope  de  Rueda  left 
it,  and  transformed  its  hard  fun  by  his  humane  and 
sparkling  wit.  He  inherited  the  cold  mediaeval  morality, 
and  touched  it  into  life  by  the  breath  of  devout  imagina- 
tion. He  re-shaped  the  crude  collection  of  massacres 
which  Virues  mistook  for  tragedy,  and  produced  effects 
of  dread  and  horror  with  an  artistry  of  his  own  devising, 
a  selection,  a  conscience,  a  delicate  vigour  all  unknown 
until  he  came.  And  for  the  comedia  de  capa  y  espada,  it 
springs  direct  from  his  own  cunning  brain,  unsuggested 
and  even  unimagined  by  any  forerunner. 

It  were  hopeless  to  analyse  any  part  of  the  immense 
theatre  which  he  bequeathed  to  the  world.  But  among 
his  best  tragedies  may  be  cited  EL  Castigo  sin  Venganza, 
with  its  dramatic  rendering  of  the  Duke  of  Ferrara  sen- 
tencing his  adulterous  wife  and  incestuous  son  to  death. 
Among  his  historic  dramas  none  surpasses  El  Me/or 
Alcalde  el  Key,  with  its  presentation  of  the  model  Spanish 
heroine,  Elvira  ;  of  the  feudal  baron,  Tello  ;  and  of  the 
King  as  the  buckler  of  his  people,  the  strong  man  doing 


262  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

justice  in  high  places  :  a  most  typical  piece  of  character, 
congenial  to  the  aristocratic  democracy  of  Spain.  A 
more  morbid  version  of  the  same  monarchical  senti- 
ment is  given  in  La  Estrella  de  Sevilla,  the  argument  of 
which  is  brief  enough  for  quotation.  King  Sancho  el 
Bravo  falls  enamoured  of  Busto  Tavera's  sister,  Estrella, 
betrothed  to  Sancho  Ortiz  de  las  Roelas.  Having  vainly 
striven  to  win  over  Busto,  the  King  follows  the  advice 
of  Arias,  corrupts  her  slave,  enters  Estrella's  room,  is 
there  discovered,  is  challenged  by  Busto,  and  escapes 
with  a  sound  skin.  The  slave,  confessing  her  share  in 
the  scheme,  is  killed  by  the  innocent  heroine's  brother. 
Meanwhile,  the  King  determines  upon  Busto's  death, 
summons  Sancho  Ortiz,  and  bids  him  slay  a  certain 
criminal  guilty  of  lese-majesti.  Herewith  the  King  offers 
Sancho  a  guarantee  against  consequences.  Sancho 
Ortiz  destroys  it,  saying  that  he  asks  for  nothing  better 
than  the  King's  word,  and  ends  by  begging  the  sovereign 
to  grant  him  the  hand  of  an  unnamed  lady.  To  this 
the  King  accedes,  and  he  hands  Sancho  Ortiz  a  paper 
containing  the  name  of  the  doomed  man.  After  much 
hesitation  and  self-torment,  Sancho  Ortiz  resolves  to  do 
his  duty  to  his  King,  slays  Busto,  is  seized,  refuses 
to  explain,  undergoes  sentence  of  death,  and  is  finally 
pardoned  by  King  Sancho,  who  avows  his  own  guilt, 
and  endeavours  to  promote  the  marriage  between  Sancho 
Ortiz  and  Estrella.  For  an  obvious  reason  they  refuse, 
and  the  curtain  falls  upon  Estrella's  determination  to  get 
her  to  a  nunnery. 

Thus  baldly  told,  the  story  resembles  a  thousand 
others ;  under  Lope's  hand  it  throbs  with  life  and 
movement  and  emotion.  His  dialogue  is  swift  and 
strong  and  appropriate,  whether  he  personifies  the  blind 


LOPE'S  IMITATORS  263 

passion  of  the  King,  the  incorruptibility  of  Busto,  the 
feudal  ideal  of  Sancho  Ortiz,  or  the  strength  and 
sweetness  of  Estrella.  Of  dialogue  he  is  the  first  and 
best  master  on  the  Spanish  stage  :  more  choice,  if  less 
powerful,  than  Tirso  ;  more  natural,  if  less  altisonant, 
than  Calderon.  The  dramatic  use  of  certain  metrical 
forms  persisted  as  he  sanctioned  it  :  the  decimas  for 
laments,  the  romance  for  exposition,  the  lira  for  heroic 
declamation,  the  sonnet  to  mark  time,  the  redondilla  for 
love-passages.  His  lightness  of  touch,  his  gaiety  and 
resourcefulness  are  exampled  in  La  Dama  Melindrosa 
(The  Languishing  Lady),  as  good  a  cloak-and-sword 
play  as  even  Lope  ever  wrote.  His  gift  of  sombre 
conception  is  to  be  seen  in  Dineros  son  Calidad  (Money 
is  Rank),  where  his  contrivance  of  the  King  of  Naples' 
statue  addressing  Octavio  is  the  nearest  possible 
approach  to  Tirso's  figures  of  the  Commander  and  of 
Don  Juan. 

Whether  or  not  Tirso  took  the  idea  from  Lope 
cannot  well  be  decided ;  but  if  he  did  so,  he  was  no 
worse  than  the  rest  of  the  world.  For  ages  dramatists 
of  all  nations  have  found  Lope  de  Vega  "good  to  steal 
from,"  and  in  many  forms  he  has  diverted  other  countries 
than  the  Spains.  Alexandre  Hardy  is  said  by  tradition 
to  have  exploited  him  vigorously,  and  probably  we 
should  find  the  imitations  among  Hardy's  lost  plays. 
Jean  Mairet  is  reputed  to  have  borrowed  generously, 
and  an  undoubted  follower  is  Jean  Rotrou,  many  of 
whose  pieces — from  the  early  Occasions  perdues  and  La 
belle.  Alfrede  to  his  last  effort,  Don  Lope  de  Cardonne — 
are  boldly  annexed  from  Lope.  D'Ouville,  in  Les  Moris 
vivants  and  in  Aimer  sans  savoir  qui,  exploited  Lope 

to  the  profit  of  French  playgoers.     It  is  a  rash  con- 
18 


264  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

jecture  which  identifies  the  Wild  Gallant  with  the  Galdn 
cscarmentado,  inasmuch  as  the  latter  play  is  even  still 
"  inedited,"  and  could  scarcely  have  reached  Dryden ; 
but  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  when  the  sources  of  our 
Restoration  drama  are  traced  out,  Lope  will  be  found 
to  rank  with  Calder6n,  and  Moreto,  and  Rojas  Zorrilla. 

Yet  his  chief  glory  must,  like  Burns's,  be  ever  local. 
Cervantes,  for  all  his  national  savour,  might  conceivably 
belong  to  any  country  ;  but  Lope  de  Vega  is  the  in- 
carnate Spains.  His  gaiety,  his  suppleness,  his  adroit 
construction,  his  affluence,  his  realism,  are  eminently 
Spanish  in  their  strength  ;  his  heedless  form,  his  jour- 
nalistic emphasis,  his  inequality,  his  occasional  incoher- 
ence, his  anxiety  to  please  at  any  cost,  are  eminently 
Spanish  in  their  weakness.  He  lacks  the  universal  note 
of  Shakespeare,  being  chiefly  for  his  own  time  and  not 
for  all  the  ages.  Shakespeare,  however,  stands  alone 
in  literature.  It  is  no  small  praise  to  say  that  Lope 
follows  him  on  a  lower  plane.  There  are  two  great 
creators  in  the  European  drama  :  Shakespeare  founds 
the  English  theatre,  Lope  de  Vega  the  Spanish,  each 
interpreting  the  genius  of  his  people  with  unmatched 
supremacy.  And  unto  both  there  came  a  period  of 
eclipse.  That  very  generation  which  Lope  had  be- 
wildered, dominated,  and  charmed  by  his  fantasy  turned 
to  the  worship  of  Calder6n.  Nor  did  he  profit  by  the 
romantic  movement  headed  by  the  Schlegels  and  by 
Tieck.  For  them,  as  for  Goethe,  Spanish  literature 
was  incarnated  by  Cervantes  and  by  Calder6n.  The 
immense  bulk  of  Lope's  production,  the  rarity  of  his 
editions,  the  absence  of  any  representative  translation, 
caused  him  to  be  overlooked.  To  two  men — to 
Augustfn  Duran  in  Spain  and  to  Grillparzer  in  Germany 


LOPE'S  ACHIEVEMENT  265 

— he  owes  his  revival ; l  and,  in  more  modest  degree, 
Lord  Holland  and  George  Henry  Lewes  have  furthered 
his  due  recognition.  The  present  tendency  is,  perhaps, 
to  overrate  him,  and  to  substitute  uncritical  adoration 
for  uncritical  neglect.  Yet  he  deserves  the  fame  which 
grows  from  day  to  day ;  for  if  he  have  bequeathed  us 
little  that  is  exquisite  in  art — as  Los  Pastores  de  Betin 
— the  \vorld  is  his  debtor  for  a  new  and  singular  form 
of  dramatic  utterance.  In  so  much  he  is  not  only  a 
great  executant  in  the  romantic  drama,  a  virtuoso  of 
unexcelled  resource  and  brilliancy.  He  is  something 
still  greater  :  the  typical  representative  of  his  race,  the 
founder  of  a  great  and  comprehensive  genre.  The  genius 
of  Cervantes  was  universal  and  unique  ;  Lope's  was 
unique  but  national.  Cervantes  had  the  rarer  and  more 
perfect  endowment.  But  they  are  immortals  both  ;  and, 
paradox  though  it  may  seem,  a  second  Cervantes  is  a 
likelier  miracle  than  a  second  Lope  de  Vega. 

In  1599,  the  year  following  upon  the  issue  of  Lope's 
Dragontea,  the  picaresque  tradition  of  Lazarillo  de  Tormes 
was  revived  by  the  Sevillan  MATEO  ALEMAN  (fl.  ?  1550- 
1609)  in  the  First  Part  of  his  Atalaya  de  la  Vida  humana: 
Vida  del  Ptcaro  Guzman  de  Alfarache.  The  alternative 
title — the  Watch-Tower  of  Human  Life — was  rejected  by 
the  reading  public,  which,  to  the  author's  annoyance, 
insisted  on  speaking  of  the  Picaro  or  Rogue.  Little  is 
known  of  Aleman's  life,  save  that  he  took  his  Bachelor's 
degree  at  Seville  in  1565.  He  is  conjectured  to  have 
visited  Italy,  perhaps  as  a  soldier,  is  found  serving  in  the 
Treasury  so  early  as  1568,  and,  after  twenty  years,  left 

1  See  M.  Farinelli's  learned  study,  Grillparztr  und  Lope  de  Vega  (Berlin, 
1894). 


266  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

the  King's  service  as  poor  as  he  entered  it.  A  passage 
in  his  Ortografla  Castellana,  published  at  Mexico  in  1609, 
is  thought  to  show  that  he  was  a  printer  ;  but  this  is 
surmise.  That  he  emigrated  to  America  seems  certain  ; 
but  the  date  of  his  death  is  unknown. 

His  Guzman  de  Alfarache  is  an  amplified  version  of 
Lazaro's  adventures ;  and,  though  he  adds  little  to  the 
first  conception,  his  abundant  episode  and  interminable 
moralisings  hit  the  general  taste.  Twenty-six  editions, 
amounting  to  some  fifty  thousand  copies,  appeared  within 
six  years  of  the  first  publication  :  not  even  Don  Quixote 
had  such  a  vogue.  Nor  was  it  less  fortunate  abroad.  In 
1623  it  was  admirably  translated  by  James  Mabbe  in  a 
version  for  which  Ben  Jonson  wrote  a  copy  of  verses  in 
praise  of 

"  this  Spanish  Proteus;  who,  though  writ 
But  in  one  tongue,  was  formed  with  the  worlds  wit; 
And  hath  the  noblest  mark  of  a  good  book, 
That  an  ill  man  dares  not  securely  look 
Upon  it,  but  will  loathe,  or  let  it  pass, 
As  a  deformed  face  doth  a  true  glass" 

It  is  curious  to  note  that  Mabbe's  rendering  appeared 
in  the  same  year  as  Shakespeare's  First  Folio,  to  which 
Ben  Jonson  also  contributed  ;  but  while  the  Rogue 
reached  its  fourth  edition  in  1656,  the  third  edition  of 
the  First  Folio  was  not  printed  till  1664. 

The  pragmatical  cant  and  the  moral  reflections  which 
weary  us  as  much  as  they  wearied  the  French  trans- 
lator, Le  Sage,  were  clearly  to  the  liking  of  Ben  Jonson 
and  his  contemporaries.  Guzman's  experiences  as  boots 
at  an  inn,  as  a  thief  in  Madrid,  as  a  soldier  at  Genoa,  as  a 
jester  at  Rome,  are  told  with  a  certain  impudent  spirit ; 
but  the  "moral  intention"  of  the  author  obtrudes  itself 


MATED  ALEMAN  267 

with  an  insistence  that  defeats  its  own  object,  and  the 
subsidiary  tales  of  Dorido  and  Clorinia,  of  Osmi'n  and 
Daraja — a  device  imitated  in  Don  Quixote — are  digres- 
sions of  neither  interest  nor  relevancy.  The  popularity 
of  the  book  was  so  great  as  to  induce  imitation.  While 
Aleman  was  busied  with  his  devout  Vida  de  San  Antonio 
de  Padua  (1604),  or  perhaps  with  his  fragmentary  versions 
of  Horace,  a  spurious  sequel  was  published  (1601)  by  a 
Valencian  lawyer,  Juan  Marti,  who  took  the  pseudonym 
of  Mateo  Lujan  de  Sayavedra.  Marti  had  somehow  man- 
aged to  see  Aleman's  manuscript  of  the  Second  Part,  and, 
in  so  much,  his  trick  was  far  baser  than  Avellaneda's. 
Aleman's  self-control  under  greater  provocation  contrasts 
most  favourably  with  Cervantes'  petulance.  In  the  true 
Second  Part  he  good-humouredly  acknowledges  his  com- 
petitor's "great  learning,  his  nimble  wit,  his  deep  judg- 
ment, his  pleasant  conceits";  and  he  adds  that  "his 
discourses  throughout  are  of  that  quality  and  condition 
that  I  do  much  envy  them,  and  should  be  proud  that 
they  were  mine."  And  having  thus  put  his  rival  in  the 
wrong,  Aleman  proceeds  to  introduce  among  his  person- 
ages a  Sayavedra  who  would  pass  himself  off  as  a  native 
of  Seville  : — "  but  all  were  lies  that  he  told  me  ;  for  he 
was  of  Valencia,  whose  name,  for  some  just  causes,  I 
conceal."  Sayavedra  figures  as  Guzman's  bonnet  and 
jackal  till  he  ends  by  suicide,  and  he  is  made  to  supply 
whatever  entertainment  the  book  contains.  Far  below 
Lazarillo  de  Tormes  in  caustic  observation  and  in  humour, 
Guzman  de  Alfarache  is  a  rapid  and  easy  study  of  black- 
guardism, forcible  and  diverting  despite  its  unctuousness, 
and  written  in  admirable  prose. 

So  much   cannot  be  claimed  for  the  Picara  Justina 
(1605)  of  Francisco  Lopez  de  TJbeda,  who  is  commonly 


268  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

identified  as  the  Dominican,  ANDR£S  P£REZ,  author  of  a 
Vida  de  San  Raymundo  de  Peftafort  and  of  other  pious 
works.  His  Picara  Justina  was  long  in  maturing,  for  he 
confesses  to  having  "augmented  after  the  publication 
of  the  admired  work  of  the  picaro,"  Guzman ;  whom 
Justina,  in  fact,  ends  by  marrying.  Pe"rez  has  acquired  a 
notorious  reputation  for  lubricity  ;  yet  it  is  hard  to  say 
how  he  came  by  it,  since  he  is  no  more  indecent  than 
most  picaresque  writers.  He  lacks  wit  and  invention  ; 
his  style,  the  most  mannered  of  his  time,  is  full  of 
pedantic  turns,  unnatural  inversions  and  verbal  eccen- 
tricities wherewith  he  seeks  to  cover  his  bald  imagi- 
nation and  his  witless  narrative.  But  his  freaks  of 
vocabulary,  his  extravagant  provincialisms,  lend  him  a 
certain  philological  importance  which  may  account  for 
the  reprints  of  his  volume.  It  may  be  added  that,  in 
his  Picara,  P6rez  anticipates  Cervantes'  trifling  find  of 
the  versos  de  cabo  roto ;  and,  from  the  angry  attack  upon 
the  monk  in  the  Viaje  del  Pamaso,  it  seems  safe  to  infer 
that  Cervantes  resented  being  forestalled  by  one  who 
had  probably  read  the  Quixote  in  manuscript.1 

A  more  successful  attempt  in  the  same  kind  is  the 
Reladones  de  la  Vida  del  Escudero  Marcos  de  Obregon  by 
Vicente  Espi.nel  (?  1544-1634),  a  poor  student  at  Sala- 
manca, a  soldier  in  Italy  and  the  Low  Countries,  and 
finally  a  priest  in  Madrid.  His  Diversas  Rimas  (1591) 
are  correct,  spirited  exercises,  in  new  metrical  forms, 
including  versions  of  Horace  which,  in  the  last  century, 
gave  rise  to  a  bitter  polemic  between  Iriarte  and  L6pez 
de  Sedano.  Moreover,  Espinel  is  said  to  have  added  a 

1  It  seems  probable  that  Cervantes  and  Pe*rez  were  both  anticipated  by 
Alonso  Alvarez  de  Soria,  who  was  finally  hanged.  See  Bartolome  Jose 
Gallardo,  Ensayo  de  una  Bibliottca  Espaftola  (Madrid,  1863,  vol.  i.,  col.  285). 


PfiREZ  DE  HITA  269 

fifth  siring  to  the  guitar.  But  it  is  by  his  Marcos  de 
Obrezon  (1618)  that  he  is  best  knnwn.  Voltaire  alleged 
that  Gil  Bias  was  a  mere  translation  of  Marcos  de 
Obregon,  but  the  only  foundation  for  this  pretty  exercise 
in  fancy  is  that  Le  Sage  borrowed  a  few  incidents  from 
Espinel,  as  he  borrowed  from  Velez  de  Guevara  and 
others.  The  book  is  excellent  of  its  kind,  brilliantly 
phrased,  full  of  ingenious  contrivance,  of  witty  obser- 
vation, and  free  from  the  long  digressions  which  disfigure 
Guzman  de  Alfarache.  Espinel  knew  how  to  build  a 
story  and  how  to  tell  it  graphically,  and  his  artistic 
selection  of  incident  makes  the  reading  of  his  Marcos 
a  pleasure  even  after  three  centuries. 

As  the  picaresque  novel  was  to  supply  the  substance 
of  Charles  Sorel's  Francion  and  of  Paul  Scarron's  Roman 
Comzque,  so  the  Almahide  of  Mile.  d,e  Scudery  and  the 
Zayde  of  Mme.  de  Lafayette  find  their  root  in  the 
Hispano-Mauresque  historical  novel.  This  invention  we 
owe  to  GINKS  PEREZ  DE  HITA  of  Murcia  (ft*.  1604),  a 
soldier  who  served  in  the  expedition  against  the  Moris- 
cos  during  the  Alpujarra  rising.  His  Guerras  civiles  de 
Granada  was  published  in  two  parts — the  first  in  1595, 
and  the  second,  which  is  distinctly  inferior,  in  1604. 
The  author's  pretence  of  translating  from  the  Arabic  of 
a  supposititious  Ibn  Hamin  is  refuted  by  the  fact  that  the 
authority  of  Spanish  chroniclers  is  continually  cited  as 
final,  and  the  fact  that  the  point  of  view  is  conspicuously 
Christian.  Some  tittle  of  history  there  is  in  Perez  de 
Hita,  but  the  value  of  his  work  lies  in  his  own  fantastic 
transcription  of  life  in  Granada  during  the  last  weeks 
before  its  surrender.  Challenges,  duels  between  Moorish 
knights,  personal  encounters  with  Christian  champions, 
harem  intrigues,  assassinations,  jousts,  sports,  and  festivals 


2/o  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

held  while  the  enemy  is  without  the  gates — such  circum- 
stances as  these  make  the  texture  of  the  story,  which  is 
written  with  extraordinary  grace  and  ease.  Archaeolo- 
gists join  with  Arabists  in  censuring  Perez  de  Hita's 
detail,  and  historians  are  scandalised  by  his  disdain  for 
facts  ;  yet  to*  most  of  us  he  is  more  Moorish  than  the 
Moors,  and  his  vivid  rendering  of  a  great  and  ancient 
civilisation  on  the  eve  of  ruin  is  more  complete  and 
impressive  than  any  that  a  pile  of  literal  chronicles  can 
yield.  As  a  literary  artist  he  is  better  in  his  first  part 
than  in  his  second,  where  he  is  embarrassed  by  a 
knowledge  of  events  in  which  he  bore  a  part ;  yet, 
even  so,  he  never  fails  to  interest,  and  the  beauty  of 
his  style  would  alone  suffice  for  a  reputation.  A  story 
of  doubtful  authority  represents  Scott  as  saying  that, 
if  he  had  met  with  the  Guerras  civiles  de  Granada  in 
earlier  days,  he  would  have  chosen  Spain  as  the  scene 
of  a  Waverley  Novel.  Whatever  be  the  truth  of  this 
report,  we  cannot  doubt  that  Sir  Walter  must  have  read 
with  delight  his  predecessor's  brilliant  performance  in 
the  province  of  the  historical  novel. 

The  Rototancefo  General,  published  at  Madrid  in  1600, 
and  amplified  in  the  reprint  of  1604,  is  often  described 
as  a  collection  of  old  ballads,  made  in  continuation  of 
the  anthologies  arranged  by  Nucio  and  Najera.  Old,  as 
applied  to  romances,  has  a  relative  meaning  ;  but  even 
in  the  lowest  sense  the  word  can  scarcely  be  used  of  the 
songs  in  the  Romancero  General,  which  is  very  largely 
made  up  of  the  work  of  contemporary  poets.  Another 
famous  volume  of  lyrics  is  Pedro  Espinosa's  Flares  de 
Poetas  ilustres  de  Espafla  (1605),  which  includes  specimens 
of  Camoes,  Barahona  de  Soto,  Lope  de  Vega,  G6ngora, 
Quevedo,  Salas  Barbadillo,  and  others  of  less  account. 


ANTONIO  P^REZ  271 

Of  minor  singers,  such  as  L6pez  Maldonado,  the  friend 
of  Cervantes  and  of  Lope,  there  were  too  many ;  but 
Maldonado's  Cancionero  (1586)  reveals  a  combination  of 
sincerity  and  technical  excellence  which  distinguishes 
him  from  the  crowd  of  fluent  versifiers  typified  by 
Pedro  de  Padilla.  Devout  songs,  as  simple  as  they  are 
beautiful,  are  found  in  the  numbers  of  Juan  L6pez  de 
tlbeda  and  of  Francisco  de  Ocana,  who  may  be  studied 
in  their  respective  cancioneros  (1588,  1604),  or — much 
more  briefly,  and  perhaps  to  better  purpose — in  Rivade- 
neyra's  Romancero  y  Cancionero  sagrados.  The  chief 
of  these  pious  minstrels  was  JOSE  DE  VALDIVIELSO 
(?  1560-1636),  the  author  of  a  long  poem  entitled  Vida, 
Excelencias  y  Muerte  del  gloriosisimo  Patriarca  San  Jose" ; 
but  it  is  neither  by  this  tedious  sacred  epic  nor  by  his 
twelve  autos  that  Valdivielso  should  be  judged.  His 
lyrical  gift,  scarcely  less  sweet  and  sincere  than  Lope's 
own,  is  best  manifested  in  his  Romancero  Espiritual,  with 
its  romances  to  Our  Lady,  its  pious  villancicos  on  Christ's 
birth,  which  anticipate  the  mingled  devotion  and  famili- 
arity of  Her  rick's  Noble  Numbers. 

ANTONIO  P£REZ  (1540-1611),  once  secretary  to  Felipe 
II.,  and  in  all  probability  the  King's  rival  in  love,  figures 
here  as  a  letter-writer  of  the  highest  merit.  No  Spaniard 
of  his  age  surpasses  him  in  clearness,  vigour,  and  variety. 
Whether  he  attempt  the  vein  of  high  gallantry,  the 
flattery  of  "  noble  patrons,"  the  terrorising  of  an  enemy 
by  hints  and  innuendos,  his  phrase  is  always  a  model  of 
correct  and  spirited  expression.  In  a  graver  manner  are 
his  Relaciones  and  his  Memorial  del  hecho  de  su  causa,  which 
combine  the  dignity  of  a  statesman  with  the  ingenuity  of 
an  attorney.  But  in  all  circumstances  Perez  never  fails 
to  interest  by  the  happy  novelty  of  his  thought,  the 


272  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

weighty  sententiousness  of  his  aphorisms,  and  by  his 
unblushing  revelation  of  baseness  and  cupidity. 

To  this  period  belongs  also  the  Centon  Epistolario,  a 
series  of  a  hundred  letters  purporting  to  be  written  by 
Fernan  Gomez  de  Cibdareal,  physician  at  Juan  II.'s 
court.  It  is  obviously  modelled  upon  the  Crdnica  of 
Juan  II.'s  reign,  and  the  imitation  goes  so  far  that,  when 
the  chronicler  makes  a  blunder,  the  supposed  letter- 
writer  follows  him.  The  Centon  Epistolario  is  now  ad- 
mitted to  be  a  literary  forgery,  due,  it  is  believed,  to  Gil 
Gonzalez  de  Avila,  who  wrote  nothing  of  equal  excellence 
under  his  own  name.  In  these  circumstances  the  Centon 
loses  all  historic  value,  and  what  was  once  cited  as  a 
monument  of  old  prose  must  now  be  considered  as  a 
clever  mystification — perhaps  the  most  perfect  of  its 
kind. 

Contemporary  with  Cervantes  and  Lope  de  Vega  was 
the  greatest  of  all  Spanish  historians,  JUAN  DE  MARIANA 
(1537-1624).  The  natural  son  of  a  canon  of  Talavera, 
Mariana  distinguished  himself  at  Alcah^de  Henares,  was 
brought  under  the  notice  of  Diego  Lainez,  General  of 


the  Jesuits,  and  joined  the  order,  whose  importance  was 

*•¥ 

whence  he  passed  to  Sicily  and  Paris.     In  1574  he  re- 


A' 

^\  /growing  daily.    At  twenty-four  Mariana  was  appointed 


professor  of  theology  at  the  great  Jesuit  College  in  Rome, 

V 


• 


turned  to  Spain,  and  was  settled  in  the  Society's  house 
at  Toledo.  He  was  appointed  to  examine  into  the 
charges  made  by  Leon  de  Castro  against  Arias  Montano, 
whose  Polyglot  Bible  appeared  at  Antwerp  in  1569-72. 
Montano  was  accused  of  adulterating  the  Hebrew  text, 
and  among  the  Jesuits  the  impression  of  his  trickery  was 
general.  After  a  careful  examination,  extending  over 
two  years,  Mariana  pronounced  in  Montano's  favour. 


MARIANA  273 

In  1599  there  appeared  his  treatise  entitled  De  Rege,  with 
official  sanction  by  his  superiors.  No  Spaniard  raised 
his  voice  against  the  book ;  but  its  sixth  chapter,  which 
laid  it  down  that  kings  may  be  put  to  death  in  certain 
circumstances,  created  a  storm  abroad.  It  was  sought 
to  prove  that,  if  Mariana  had  never  written,  Ravaillac 
would  not  have  assassinated  Henri  IV.;  and,  eleven  years 
after  publication,  Mariana's  book  was  publicly  burned 
by  the  hangman.  His  seven  Latin  treatises,  published 
at  Koln  in  1609,  do  not  concern  us  here  ;  but  they  must 
be  mentioned,  since  two  of  the  essays — one  on  immor- 
tality, the  other  on  currency  questions — led  to  the  writer's 
imprisonment. 

The  main  work  of  Mariana's  lifetime  was  his  Historia 
de  Espanay  written,  as  he  says,  to  let  Europe  know  what 
Spain  had  accomplished.  It  was  not  unnatural  that, 
with  a  foreign  audience  in  view,  Mariana  should  address 
it  in  Latin  ;  hence  his  first  twenty  books  were  published 
in  that  language  (1592).  But  he  bethought  him  of  his 
own  country,  and,  in  a  happy  hour,  became  his  own 
translator.  His  Castilian  version  (1601)  almost  amounts 
to  a  new  work ;  for,  in  translating,  he  cut,  amplified, 
and  corrected  as  he  saw  fit.  And  in  subsequent  editions 
he  continued  to  modify  and  improve.  The  result  is  a 
masterpiece  of  historic  prose.  Mariana  was  not  minute 
in  his  methods,  and  his  contempt  for  literal  accuracy 
comes  out  in  his  answer  to  Lupercio  de  Argensola,  who 
had  pointed  out  an  error  in  detail : — "  I  never  pretended 
to  verify  each  fact  in  a  history  of  Spain ;  if  I  had,  I 
should  never  have  finished  it."  This  is  typical  of  the 
man  and  his  method.  He  makes  no  pretence  to  special 
research,  and  he  accepts  a  legend  if  he  honestly  can  :  even 
as  he  follows  a  common  literary  convention  when  he 


274  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

writes  speeches  in  Livy's  manner  for  his  chief  personages. 
But  while  a  score  of  writers  cared  more  for  accuracy 
than  did  Mariana,  his  work  survives  not  as  a  chronicle, 
but  as  a  brilliant  exercise  in  literature.  His  learning  is 
more  than  enough  to  save  him  from  radical  blunders ; 
his  impartiality  and  his  patriotism  go  hand  in  hand  ;  his 
character-drawing  is  firm  and  convincing  ;  and  his  style, 
with  its  faint  savour  of  archaism,  is  of  unsurpassed  dig- 
nity and  clearness  in  his  narrative.  He  cared  more  for 
the  spirit  than  for  the  letter,  and  time  has  justified  him. 
"The  most  remarkable  union  of  picturesque  chronicling 
with  sober  history  that  the  world  has  ever  seen " — in 
such  words  Ticknor  gives  his  verdict ;  and  the  praise  is 
not  excessive. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE  AGE  OF  FELIPE  IV.  AND  CARLOS  THE 
BEWITCHED  " 

./  ^3~      £•       rf 

1621-1700 

THE  reign  of  Felipe  IV.  opens  with  as  fair  a  promise 
of  achievement  as  any  in  history.  At  Madrid,  in  the 
third  and  fourth  decades  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  court  of  the  Grand  Monarque  was  anticipated 
and  perhaps  outdone.  We  are  inclined  to  think  of 
Felipe  as  Velazquez  has  presented  him,  on  his  "  Cordo- 
bese  barb,  the  proud  king  of  horses,  and  the  fittest 
horse  for  a  king " ;  and  to  recall  the  praise  which 
William  Cavendish,  first  Duke  of  Newcastle,  lavished 
on  his  horsemanship  : — "  The  great  King  of  Spain, 
deceased,  did  not  only  love  it  and  understand  it,  but 
was  absolutely  the  best  horseman  in  all  Spain."  Yet 
is  it  a  mistake  to  suppose  him  a  mere  hunter.  Art 
and  letters  were  his  constant  care  ;  nor  was  he 
without  a  touch  of  individual  accomplishment.  He 
was  not  content  with  instructing  his  Ministers  to 
buy  every  good  picture  offered  in  foreign  markets : 
his  own  sketches  show  that  he  had  profited  by  seeing 
Velazquez  at  work.  It  is  no  small  point  in  his  favour 
to  have  divined  at  a  glance  the  genius  of  the  unknown 
Sevillan  master,  and  to  have  appointed  him — scarcely 
out  of  his  teens — court-painter.  He  likewise  collated 


275 


X 


276  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

the  artist,  Alonso  Cano,  to  a  canonry  at  Granada,  and, 
when  the  chapter  protested  that  Cano  had  small  Latin 
and  less  Greek,  the  King's  reply  was  honourable  to  his 
taste  and  spirit  :  —  "  With  a  stroke  of  the  pen  I  can 
make  canons  like  you  by  the  score  ;  but  Alonso  Cano 
is  a  miracle  of  God."  He  would  even  stay  the  course 
of  justice  to  protect  an  artist.  Thus,  when  Velazquez's 
master,  the  half-mad  Herrera,  was  charged  with  coin- 
ing, the  monarch  intervened  with  the  remark  :  "  Remem- 
ber his  St.  Hermengild."  Music  becalmed  the  King's 
fever,  and  the  plays  at  the  Buen  Retiro  vied  with  the 
masques  of  Whitehall.  His  antechambers  were  thronged 
with  men  of  genius.  Lope  de  Vega  still  survived,  his 
glory  waxing  daily,  though  the  best  part  of  his  life's 
work  was  finished.  Velez  de  Guevara  was  the  royal 
chamberlain  ;  Gongora,  the  court  chaplain,  hated,  envied, 
and  admired,  was  the  dreaded  chief  of  a  combative  poetic 
school  ;  his  disciple,  Villamediana,  struck  terror  with  his 
vitriolic  epigrams,  his  rancorous  tongue  ;  the  aged  Maria- 
na represented  the  best  tradition  of  Spanish  history  ; 
Bartolome'  de  Argensola  was  official  chronicler  of  Arag6n; 
Tirso  de  Molina,  Ruiz  de  Alarc6n,  and  Rojas  Zorrilla  filled 
the  theatres  with  their  brilliant  and  ingenious  fancies  ; 
the  incorruptible  satirist,  Quevedo,  was  private  secre- 
tary to  the  King  ;  the  boyish  Calder6n  was  growing  into 
repute  and  royal  favour. 

Of  the  Aragonese  playwright,  Lupercio  Leonardo  de 
Argensola,  we  have  already  spoken  in  a  previous  chapter. 

is  brother,    BARTOLOM£   LEONARDO  DE  ARGENSOLA 


(1562-1631),  took  orders,  and,  through  the  influence  o 
the  Duque  de  Villahermosa,  was  named  rector  of  the 
town  whence  his  patron  took  his  title.     His  earliest  work, 
the    Conquista   de   las  Islas  Molucas  (1609),  written   by 


THE  ARGENSOLAS  277 

order  of  the  Conde  de  Lemos,  is  uncritical  in  conception 
and  design  ;  but  the  matter  of  its  primitive,  romantic, 
and  even  sentimental  legends  derives  fresh  charm  from 
the  author's  apt  and  polished  narrative.  In  1611  he 
and  his  brother  accompanied  Lemos  to  Naples,  thereby 
stirring  the  anger  of  Cervantes,  who  had  hoped  to  be 
among  the  Viceroy's  suite,  as  appears  from  a  passage 
in  the  Viaje  del  Parnaso,  which  roundly  insinuates  that 
the  Argensolas  were  a  pair  of  intriguers.  The  dis- 
appointment was  natural  ;  yet  posterity  is  even  grateful 
for  it,  since  a  transfer  to  Naples  would  certainly  have 
lost  us  the  second  Don  Quixote.  Doubtless  the  Argen- 
solas, who  were  of  Italian  descent,  were  better  fitted  than 
Cervantes  for  commerce  with  Italian  affairs,  and  Barto- 
lome  made  friends  on  all  sides  in  Naples  as  in  Rome.  On 
his  brother's  death  in  1613,  he  became  official  chronicler 
of  Arag6n,  and,  in  1631,  published  a  sequel  to  Zurita, 
the  Angles  de  Arag6n,  which  deals  so  minutely  with  the 
events  of  the  years  1516-20  as  to  become  wearisome^ 
dejscite  all  Argensola's  grace  of  manner,  i'he  &imas 
of  the  two  brothers,  published  posthumously  in  1634  by 
Lupercio's  son,  Gabriel  Leonardo  de  Albi6n,  was  stamped 
with  the  approval  of  the  dictator,  Lope  de  Vega,  who 
declared  that  the  authors  "had  come  from  Arag6n  to 
reform  among  our  poets  the  Castilian  language,  which 
is  suffering  from  new  horrible  phrases,  more  puzzling 
than  enlightening." 

This  is  an  overstatement  of  a  truth,  due  to  Lope's 
aversion  from  Gongorism  in  all  its  shapes.  Horace  is 
the  model  of  the  Argensolas,  whose  renderings  of  the 
two  odes  Ibam  forte  via  sacra  and  Beatus  ille  are  among 
the  happiest  of  versions.  Their  sobriety  of  thought  is 
austere,  and  their  classic  correctness  of  diction  is  in 


278  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

curious  contrast  with  the  daring  innovations  of  their 
time.  Lupercio  has  a  polite,  humorous  fancy,  which 
shows  through  Mr.  Gibson's  translation  of  a  well-known 
sonnet  :  — 

"  /  must  confess,  Don  John,  on  due  inspection, 
That  dame  Elvira  's  charming  red  and  white, 
Though  fair  they  seem,  are  only  hers  by  right, 

In  that  her  money  purchased  their  perfection  ; 

But  thou  must  grant  as  well,  on  calm  reflection, 
That  her  sweet  lie  hath  such  a  lustre  bright, 
As  fairly  puts  to  shame  the  paler  light, 

And  honest  beauty  of  a  true  complexion  ! 

And  yet  no  wonder  I  distracted  go 

With  such  deceit,  when  'tis  within  our  ken 
That  nature  blinds  us  with  the  self-same  spell; 

For  that  blue  heaven  above  that  charms  us  so, 
Is  neither  heave  nor  blue  !    Sad  pity  then 
That  so  much  beauty  is  not  truth  as  well" 


manifold  interests  in  politics,  in  history, 
and  in  the  theatre  left  him  little  time  for  poetry,  and  a 
large  proportion  of  his  verses  were  destroyed  after  his 
/  /  Jp  death  ;  still,  partially  represented  as  he  is,  the  pretty  wit, 
the  pure  idiom,  and  elegant  form  of  his  lyrical  pieces 
vindicate  his  title  to  rank  among  Castilian  poets  of  the 
second  order.  As  for  Bartolome',  he  resembles  his  brother 
in  natural  faculty,  but  His  fibre  is  stronger.  A  hard,  dog- 
matic spirit,  a  bigot  in  his  reverence  for  convention,  an 
idolater  of  Terence,  with  a  stern,  patriotic  hatred  of 
novelties,  he  was  regarded  as  the  standard-bearer  of  the 
anti-Gongorists.  Too  deeply  ingrained  a  doctrinaire  to 
court  popularity,  he  was  content  with  the  applause  of  a 
literary  clique,  and  had  practically  no  influence  on  his 

•*  *•  -i       _  _________  —  •"""  "*  ""  '"  ••  '  *^  —  ^*« 

age._  Yet  his  precept  was  valuable,  and  his  practice, 
always  sound,  reaches  real  excellence  in  such  devout 
numbers  as  his  Sonnet  to  Providence. 


GONGORA  279 

Much  meritorious  academic  verse  is  found  in  the 
works  of  other  contemporary  writers,  though  most  rivals 
lapse  into  errors  of  taste  and  faults  of  expression  from 
which  the  younger  "Argensola  is  honourably  free.  But 
no  great  leader  is  formed  in  the  school  of  prudent  cor- 
rectness, and  by  temperament,  as  well  as  by  training,  the 
Rector  of  Villahermosa  was  unfit  to  cope  with  so  virile  and 
so  combative  a  genius  as  Luis  DE  ARGOTE  Y  G6NGORA>*r-"- 
(1561-1627),  the  ideal  chief  of  an  aggressive  movement.. 
Son  of  Francisco  de  Argote,  Corregidor  of  Cordoba,  and 
of  Leonora  de  G6ngora,  he  adopted  his  mother's  name, 
partly  because  of  its  nobility  and  partly  because  of  its 
euphony.  In  his  sixteenth  year  G6ngora  left  his  native 
C6rdoba  to  read  law  at  Salamanca,  with  a  view  to  follow- 
ing his  father's  profession ;  but  his  studies  were  never 
serious,  and,  though  he  took  his  bachelor's  degree,  he 
gave  most  of  his  time  to  fencing  and  to  dancing.  To 
the  consternation  of  his  family,  he  abandoned  law  and 
announced  himself  as  a  professional  poet.  So  early  as 
1585  Cervantes  names  him  in  the  Canto  de  Caliope  as 
a  rare  and  matchless  genius  —  raro  ingenio  sin  segundo 
—  and,  though  flattery  from  Cervantes  is  too  indis- 
criminating  to  mean  much,  the  mention  at  least  implies 
that  G6ngora's  promise  was  already  recognised.  Few 
details  of  his  career  are  with  us,  though  rumour  tells  of 
platonic  love-passages  with  a  lady  of  Valencia,  Luisa  de 
Cardona,  who  finally  entered  a  convent  in  Toledo.  His 
repute  as  a  poet,  aided  by  his  mother's  connection  with 
the  ducal  house  of  Almod6var,  won  for  him  a  lay  canonry 
in  1590,  and  this  increase  of  means  enabled  him  to  visit 
the  capital,  where  he  was  instantly  hailed  as  a  wit  and  as 
a  brilliant  poet.  His  fame  had  hitherto  been  local ;  with 
the  publication  of  his  verses  in  Espinosa's  Floresde  Poetas. 
19 


280  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

ilustres  (1605),  it  passed  through  the  whole  of  Spain.  In 
the  same  year,  or  at  latest  in  1606,  G6ngora  was  ordained 
priest.  His  private  life  was  always  exemplary,  and  this, 
together  with  his  natural  harshness,  perhaps  explains 
his  intolerance  for  the  foibles  of  Cervantes  and  of 
Lope.  When  the  favourite,  the  Duque  de  Lerma,  fell 
from  power,  G6ngora  attached  himself  to  Sandoval,  who 
nominated  him  to  a  small  prebend  at  Toledo.  As  chap- 
lain to  the  King,  the  poet's  circle  of  friends  enlarged, 
and  his  literary  influence  grew  correspondingly.  In 
1626  he  had  a  cerebral  attack,  during  which  the  phy- 
sicians of  the  Queen  attended  him.  The  story  that  he 
died  insane  is  a  gross  exaggeration  :  he  lingered  on 
a  year,  having  lost  his  memory,  died  of  apoplexy  at 
Cordoba  on  May  23,  1627,  and  is  buried  in  the  St. 
Bartholomew  Chapel  of  the  cathedral. 

An  entremes  entitled  La  destrucci6n  de  Troya,  a  play 
called  Las  Firmezas  de  Isabela  (written  in  collaboration 
with  his  brother,  Juan  de  Argote),  and  a  fragment,  the 
Comedia  Venatoria,  remain  to  show  that  Gongora  wrote 
for  the  stage.  Whether  he  was  ever  played  is  doubtful, 
and,  in  any  case,  his  gift  is  not  dramatic.  He  was  so 
curiously  careless  of  his  writings  that  he  never  troubled 
to  print  or  even  to  keep  copies  of  them,  and  a  remark 
which  he  let  fall  during  his  last  illness  goes  to  show  his 
artistic  dissatisfaction  : — "  Just  as  I  was  beginning  to 
know  something  of  the  first  letters  in  my  alphabet  does 
God  call  me  to  Himself:  His  will  be  done!"  His 
poems  circulated  mostly  in  manuscript  copies,  which 
underwent  so  many  changes  that  the  author  often  knew 
not  his  own  work  when  it  returned  to  his  hands ;  and, 
but  for  the  piety  of  Juan  L6pez  de  Vicuna,  G6ngora 
might  be  for  us  the  shadow  of  a  great  name.  Lopez  de 


'Jt&fe 


GONGORA'S  FIRST  MANNER  281 


Vicuna  spent  twenty  years  in  collecting  his  scattered 
verse,  which  he  published  in  the  very  year  of  the  poet's 
death,  under  the  resounding  title  of  Works  in  Verse  of 
the  Spanish  Homer.  A  later  and  better  edition  was  pro- 
duced by  Gonzalo  de  Hoces  y  Cordoba  (1633). 

G6ngora  began  with  the  lofty  ode,  as  a  strict  observer 
of  literary  tradition,  a  reverent  imitator  of  Herrera's 
heroics.  His  earliest  essays  are  not  very  easy  to  dis- 
tinguish from  those  of  his  contemporaries,  save  that  his 
tone  is  nobler  and  that  his  execution  is  more  conscien- 
tious. He  was  a  craftsman  from  the  outset,  and  his 
technical  equipment  is  singularly  complete.  So  far  was 
he  from  showing  any  freakish  originality,  that  he  is  open 
to  the  reproach  of  undue  devotion  to  his  masters.  His 
thought  is  theirs  as  much  as  are  his  method,  his  form, 
his  ornament,  his  ingenuity.  An  example  of  his  early 
style  is  his  Ode  to  the  Armada,  of  which  we  may  quote  a 
stanza  from  Churton's  translation  :  — 

"  O  Island,  once  so  Catholic,  so  strong, 

Fortress  of  Faith,  now  Heresy's  foul  shrine, 
Camp  of  trained  war,  and  Wisdom's  sacred  school  ; 

The  time  hath  been,  such  majesty  was  thine, 
The  lustre  of  thy  crown  was  first  in  song. 
Now  the  dull  weeds  that  spring  by  Stygian  pool 
Were  fitting  wreath  for  thee.     Land  of  the  rule 
Of  Arthurs,  Edwards,  Henries  !     Where  are  they? 
Their  Mother  where,  rejoicing  in  their  sway, 
Firm  in  the  strength  of  Faith  f     To  lasting  shame 
Condemned,  through  guilty  blame 
Of  her  who  rules  thee  now. 
O  hateful  Queen,  so  hard  of  heart  and  brow, 

Wanton  by  turns,  and  cruel,  fierce,  and  lewd, 
Thou  distaff  on  the  throne,  true  •virtues  bane, 

Wolf-like  in  every  mood, 
May  Heaven  's  just  fiame  on  thy  false  tresses  rain/* 


282  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

This  is  excellent  of  its  kind,  and  among  all  Herrera's 
imitators  none  comes  so  near  to  him  as  Gongora  in 
lyrical  melody,  in  fine  workmanship,  in  ji  certain  clear 
distinction  of  utterance.  Yet  already  there  are  hints  of 
qualities  destined  to  bear  down  their  owner.  Not  con- 
tent with  simple  patriotism,  with  denunciation  of  schism 
and  infidelity,  G6ngora  foreshadows  his  future  self  as 
a  very  master  of  gibes  and  sneers.  The  note  of  alti- 
sonance,  already  emphatic  in  Herrera,  is  still  more  forced 
in  the  young  Cordoban  poet,  who  adds  a  taste  for  far- 
fetched conceits  and  extravagant  metaphor,  assuredly  not 
learned  in  the  Sevillan  school.  Rejecting  experiments  in 
the  stately  ode,  he  for  many  years  continued  his  practice 
in  another  province  of  verse,  and  by  rigorous  discipline 
he  learned  to  excel  in  virtue  of  his  fine  simplicity,  his 
graceful  imagery,  and  his  urbane  wit.  It  should  seem 
that  intellectual  self-denial  cost  him  little,  for  his  trans- 
formations are  among  the  most  complete  in  literary 
history.  Consider,  for  instance,  the  interval  between 
the  emphatic  dignity  of  his  Armada  ode  and  the  charm- 
ing fancy,  the  distinguished  cynicism  of  Love  in  Reason, 
as  Archdeacon  Churton  gives  it : — 

"  /  love  thee,  but  let  love  be  free  : 

I  do  not  ask,  1  would  not  learn, 
What  scores  of  rival  hearts  for  thee 
Are  breaking  or  in  anguish  burn. 

You  die  to  tell,  but  leave  untold, 
The  story  of  your  Red- Cross  Knight, 

Who  proffered  mountain-heaps  of  gold 
If  he  for  you  might  ride  and  fight; 

Or  how  the  jolly  soldier  gay 

Would  wear  your  colours,  all  and  some; 

But  you  disdain \i  their  trumpefs  bray, 
And  would  not  hear  their  tuck  of  drum.  . 


GGNGORAS  SECOND  MANNER  283 

We  love  ;  but  'tis  the  simplest  case  : 
The  faith  on  which  our  hands  have  met 

Isjix'd,  as  wax  on  deeds  of  grace, 
To  hold  as  grace,  but  not  as  debt. 

For  well  I  wot  that  nowadays 

Lovers  conquering  bow  is  soonest  bent 
By  him  whose  valiant  hand  displays 

The  largest  roll  of  yearly  rent.  .  .  , 

So  let  us  follow  in  the  fashion, 

Let  love  be  gentle,  mild,  and  cool : 
For  these  are  not  the  days  of  passion, 

But  calculation's  sober  rule. 

Your  grace  will  cheer  me  like  the  sun; 

But  I  can  live  content  in  shades. 
Take  me :  you'll  find  when  all  is  done, 

Plain  truth,  and  fewer  serenades." 

Even  in  translation  the  humorous  amenity  is  not  alto- 
gether lost,  though  no  version  can  reproduce  the 
technical  perfection  of  the  original.  For  refined  wit 
and  brilliant  effect  Gongora  has  seldom  been  exceeded ; 
yet  his  fighter  pieces  i ailed  to  bring  mm  trie  renown 
and  the  high  promotion  which  he  expected.  He  feigned 
to  despise  popularity,  declaring  that  he  "  desired  to 
do  something  that  would  not  be  for  the  general "  ;  but 
none  was  keener  than  he  in  courting  applause  on  any 
terms.  He  would  dazzle  and  surprise,  if  he  could  not 
enchant,  his  public,  and  forthwith  he  set  to  founding  .-+ 
the  school  which  bears  the  name  of  culteranismo.  We  ;r  ' 
do  not  know  precisely  when  he  first  practisecTuT  this 
vein  ;  but  it  seems  certain  that  he  was  anticipated  by 
a  young  soldier,  Luis  de  Carrillo  y  Sotomayor  (1583- 
1610),  whose  posthumous  verses  were  published  by  his 
brother  at  Madrid  in  1611.  Carrillo  had  served  in  Italy, 
where  he  came  under  the  spell  of  Giovanni  Battista 


284  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Marino,  then  at  the  height  of  his  influence  ;  and  the 
Obras  of  Carrillo  contain  the  first  intimations  of  the 
new  manner.  Many  of  Carrillo's  poems  are  admirable 
for  their  verbal  melody,  his  eclogues  being  distinguished 
for  simple  sincerity  of  sentiment  and  expression.  But 
these  passed  almost  unnoticed,  for  Carrillo  was  only 
doing  well  what  Lope  de  Vega  was  doing  better  ;  and  in 
fact  it  seems  likely  that  the  merits  of  the  dead  soldier- 
poet  were  unjustly  overlooked  by  a  generation  which 
was  content  with  two  editions  of  his  works. 

He  found,  however,  a  passionate  admirer  in  Gongora, 
who  perceived  in  such  work  as  Carrillo's  Sonnet  to  the 
Patience  of  his  Jealous  Hope  the  possibilities  of  a  revolu- 
tion^ When  Carrillo  writes  of  "  the  proud  sea  bathing 
the  blind  forehead  of  the  deaf  sky,"  he  is  merely  setting 
down  a  tasteless  conceit,  which  gains  nothing  by  a  forced 
inversion  of  phrase ;  but,  as  it  happened,  conceit  of 
this  sort  was  a  novelty  in  Spain,  and  G6ngora,  who  had 
already  shown  a  tendency  to  preciosity  in  Espinosa's 
collection,  resolved  to  develop  Carrillo's  innovation. 
Few  questions  are  more  debated  and  less  understood 
than  this  of  Gongorism.  So  good  a  critic  as  Karl 
Hillebrand  gives  forth  this  strange  utterance  : — "  Not 
only  Italian  and  German  Marinists  were  imitators  of 
Spanish  Gongorists  :  even  your  English  Euphuism  of 
Shakespeare's  time  had  its  origin  in  the  culteranismo 
of  Spain."  One  hardly  likes  to  accuse  Hillebrand.  of 
writing  nonsense,  but  he  certainly  comes  near,  perilously 
near  it  in  this  case.  Lyly's  Euphues  was  published  in 
1579,  while  Gongora  was  still  a  student  at  Salamanca, 
and  Shakespeare  died  nearly  twelve  years  before  a  line 
of  G6ngora's  later  poems  was  in  print.  Spanish  scholars, 
indeed,  disclaim  responsibility  for  Euphuism  in  any 


EUPHUISM  AND  GONGORISM  285 

shape.  They  refuse  to  admit  that  Lord  Berners'  or 
North's  translations  of  Guevara  could  have  produced 
the  effects  ascribed  to  them  ;  and  they  argue  with  much 
reason  that  Gongorism  is  but  the  local  form  of  a  disease 
which  attacked  all  Europe.  However  that  may  be, 
there  can  exist  no  possible  connection  between  English 
Euphuism  and  Spanish  Gongorism,  save  such  as  comes 
from  a  common  Italian  origin.  Gongorism  derives 
directly  from  the  Marinism  propagated  in  Spain  by 
Carrillo,  though  it  must  be  confessed  that  Marino's 
extravagances  pale  beside  those  of  Gongora. 

This,  in  fact,  is  no  more  than  we  should  expect,  for 
Marino's  conceits  were,  so  to  say,  almost  natural  to 
him,  while  Gongora's  are  a  pure  effect  of  affectation. 
He  wilfully  got  rid  of  his  natural  directness,  and  g:ive 
himself  to  cultivating  artificial  antithesis,  violent  inver- 
sions of  words  and  phrases,  exaggerated  metaphors 
piled  upon  sense  tropes  devoid  of  meaning.  Other 
poets  appealed  to  the  vulgar :  he  would  charm  the 
cultivated — los  cultos.  Hence  the  name  culteranismo.1 
At  the  same  time  it  is  fair  to  say  that  he  has  been 
blamed  for  more  crimes  than  he  ever  committed. 
Ticknor,  more  than  most  critics,  loses  his  head  when- 
ever he  mentions  Gongora's  name,  and  holds  the 
Spaniard  up  to  ridicule  by  printing  a  literal  translation 
of  his  more  daring  flights.  Thus  he  chooses  a  passage 
from  the  first  of  the  Soledades,  and  asserts  that  G6ngora 
sings  the  praise  of  "  a  maiden  so  beautiful,  that  she 
might  parch  up  Norway  with  her  two  suns,  and  bleach 
Ethiopia  with  her  two  hands."  Perhaps  no  poet  that 

1  According   to   Lope  de  Vega,  the  word  culteranismo  was  invented  by 
Jimenez  Paton,  Villamediana's  tutor. 


236  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

ever  lived  would  survive  the  test  of  such  bald,  literal 
rendering  as  this,  and  a  much  more  exact  notion  of  the 
Spanish  is  afforded  by  Churton  : — 

"  Her  twin-born  sun-bright  eyes 
Might  turn  to  summer  Norway's  wintry  skies; 
And  the  white  "wonder  of  her  snowy  hand 
Blanch  with  surprise  the  sons  of  Ethiopian  land" 

Another  sonnet  on  Luis  de  Bavia's  Historia  Pontifical 
is  presented  in  this  fashion  : — "This  poem  which  Bavia 
has  now  offered  to  the  world,  if  not  tied  up  in  numbers, 
yet  is  filed  down  into  a  good  arrangement,  and  licked 
into  shape  by  learning  ;  is  a  cultivated  history,  whose 
grey-headed  style,  though  not  metrical,  is  combed  out, 
and  robs  three  pilots  of  the  sacred  bark  from  time, 
and  rescues  them  from  oblivion.  But  the  pen  that  thus 
immortalises  the  heavenly  turnkeys  on  the  bronzes  of  its 
history  is  not  a  pen,  but  the  key  of  ages.  It  opens  to 
their  names,  not  the  gates  of  failing  memory,  which 
stamps  shadows  on  masses  of  foam,  but  those  of  immor- 
tality." This,  again,  is  translation  of  a  kind — of  a  kind 
very  current  among  fourth-form  boys,  and,  perpetrated 
by  such  an  excellent  scholar  as  Ticknor,  is  to  be  accepted 
as  intentional  caricature  of  the  original.  Once  more  the 
loyal  Churton  shall  elucidate  his  author : — 

"  This  offering  to  the  world  by  Bavia  brought 

Is  poesy,  by  numbers  unconfined; 

Such  order  guides  the  masters  march  of  mind, 
Suck  skill  refines  the  rich-drawn  ore  of  thought. 
The  style,  the:  matter,  gray  experience  tauglit, 

Arfs  rules  adorn' d  what  metre  might  not  bind: 

The  tale  halh  baffled  time,  that  thief  unkind, 
And  from  Oblivion 's  bonds  with  toil  hath  brought 


THE  SOLEDADES  287 

Three  helmsmen  ofihe  sacred  barque  ;  the  pen, 
That  so  these  heavenly  wardens  doth  enhance, — 

No  pen,  but  rather  key  of  'Fame 's proud  dome, 

Opening  her  everlasting  doors  to  men, — 

Is  no  poor  drudge  recording  things  of  chance, 

Which  paints  her  shadowy  forms  on  trembling  foam" 

Still,  when  all  allowance  is  made,  it  must  be  confessed 
that  G6ngora  excels  in  hiding  his  meanings.  By  many 
his  worst  faults  were  extolled  as  beauties,  and  there  was 
formed  a  school  of  disciples  who  agreed  with  Le  Sage's 
Fabrice  in  holding  the  master  for  "le  plus  beau  g£nie 
que  1'Espagne  ait  jamais  produit."  But  G6ngora  was 
not  to  conquer  without  a  struggle.  One  illustrious  writer 
was  an  early  convert :  Cervantes  proclaimed  himself  an 
admirer  of  the  Polifemo,  which  is  among  the  most  diffi- 
cult of  G6ngora's  works.  Pedro  de  Valencia,  one  of 
Spain's  best  humanists,  was  the  first  to  denounce  G6n- 
gora's  transpositions,  licentious  metaphors,  and  verbal 
inventions  as  manifested  in  the  Soledades  (Solitary 
Musings),  round  which  the  controversy  Taged  hottest. 
Within  twenty-five  years  of  Gongora's  death  the  first 
Soledad  found  an  English  translator  in  the  person  of 
Thomas  Stanley  (1651),  who  renders  in  this  fashion: — 

"'Twos  now  the  blooming  season  of  the  year, 
And  in  disguise  Europas  ravisher 
{His  brow  arm  d  with  a  crescent,  with  such  beams 
Encompast  as  the  sun  unclouded  streams 
The  sparkling  glory  of  the  zodiac.')  led 
His  numerous  herd  along  the  azure  mead. 

When  he,  whose  right  to  beauty  might  remove 
The  youth  of  Ida  from  the  cup  of  Jove, 
ShipwrecKt,  rcpulJd,  and  absent,  did  complain 
Of  his  hard  fate  and  mistress's  disdain; 
With  such  sad  sweetness  that  the  winds,  and  sea, 
In  sighs  and  murmurs  kept  him  company.  .  .  . 


288  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

By  this  time  night  begun  fungild  the  skies, 

/fills  from  the  sea,  seas  from  the  hills  arise, 

Confusedly  unequal;  when  once  more 

The  unhappy  youth  invested  in  the  poor 

Remains  of  his  late  shipwreck,  through  sharp  briars 

And  dusky  shades  up  the  high  rock  aspires. 

The  steep  ascent  scarce  to  be  reacKd  by  aid 

Of  wings  he  climbs,  less  weary  than  afraid. 

At  last  he  gains  the  top ;  so  strong  and  high 
As  scaling  dreaded  not,  nor  battery, 
An  equal  judge  the  difference  to  decide 
'  Twixt  the  mute  load  and  ever-sounding  tide. 
His  steps  now  move  secured;  a  glimmering  light 
(The  Pharos  of  some  cottage}  takes  his  sight." 

And  so  on  in  passages  where  the  darkness  grows  denser 
at  every  line.  "Cest  1'obscurite  qui  en  fait  tout  le 
merite,"  as  Fabrice  observes  when  Gil  Bias  fails  to 
understand  his  friend's  sonnet. 

Valencia's  protest  was  followed  by  another  from  the 
Sevillan,  Juan  de  Jauregui,  whose  preface  to  his  Rimas 
(1618)  is  a  literary  manifesto  against  those  poems  "which 
only  contain  an  embellishment  of  words,  being  phan- 
toms without  soul  or  body."  Jauregui  returned  to  the 
attack  in  his  Discurso  poetico  (1623),  a  more  formal  and 
elaborate  indictment  of  the  whole  Gongoristic  move- 
ment. This  treatise,  of  which  only  one  copy  is  known 
to  exist,  has  been  reprinted  with  some  curtailments  by 
Sr.  Menendez  y  Pelayo  in  his  Histona  de  las  Ideas  Esttticas 
en  Espaila.  It  deserves  study  no  less  for  its  sound  doc- 

I  trine  than  for  the  admirable  style  of  the  writer,  whose 
courtesy  of  tone  makes  him  an  exception  among  the 
polemists  of  his  time.  As  Jauregui  represents  the  oppo- 
sition of  the  Seville  group,  so  Manuel  Faria  y  Sousa,  the 
editor  of  the  Lusiadas,  speaks  in  the  name  of  Portugal. 
Faria  y  Sousa's  theory  of  poetics  is  the  simplest  possible : 


G6NGORA  AND  LOPE  289 

there  is  but  one  great  poet  in  the  world,  and  his  name  is 
Camoes.  Faria  y  Sousa  transforms  the  Lusiadas  into  a 
dull  allegory,  where  Mars  typifies  St.  Peter  ;  he  writes 
down  Tasso  as  "  common,  trivial,  not  worth  mentioning, 
poor  in  knowledge  and  invention  "  ;  and,  in  accordance 
with  these  principles,  he  accuses  Gdngora  of  being  no 
allegorist,  and  protests  that  to  rank  him  with  Camoes  is 
to  compare  "  Marsyas  to  Apollo,  a  fly  to  an  eagle." 

A  more  formidable  opponent  for  the  Gongorists  was 
Lope  de  Vega,  who  was  himself  accused  of  obscurity 
and  affectation.  Bouhours,  in  his  Maniere  de  bien  penser 
dans  les  ouvrages  d'esprit  (1687),  tells  that  the  Bishop  of 
Belley,  Jean-Pierre  Camus,  meeting  Lope  in  Madrid, 
cross-examined  him  as  to  the  meaning  of  one  of  his 
sonnets.  With  his  usual  good-nature,  the  poet  listened, 
and  "  ayant  left  et  releu  plusieurs  fois  son  sonnet,  avoua 
sincerement  qu'il  ne  1'entendoit  pas  luy  mesme."  It 
must  have  irked  his  inclination  to  take  the  field  against 
Gongora,  for  whom  he  had  a  strong  personal  liking  : — • 
"  He  is  a  man  whom  I  must  esteem  and  love,  accepting 
from  him  with  humility  what  I  can  understand,  and 
admiring  with  veneration  what  I  cannot  understand." 
Yet  he  loved  truth  (as  he  understood  it)  more  than  he 
loved  Socrates.  "  You  can  make  a  culto  poet  in  twenty- 
four  hours  :  a  few  inversions,  four  formulas,  six  Latin 
words,  or  emphatic  phrases — and  the  trick  is  done," 
he  writes  in  his  Respuesta ;  and  he  follows  up  this  plain 
speaking  with  a  burlesque  sonnet. 

Of  Faria  y  Sousa  and  his  like,  G6ngora  made  small 
account :  he  fastened  upon  Lope  as  his  victim,  pursuing 
him  with  unsleeping  vindictiveness.  There  is  something 
pathetic  in  the  Dictator's  endeavours  to  soften  his  perse- 
cutor's heart.  He  courts  Gongora  with  polite  flatteries  in 


2QO  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

print;  he  dedicates  to  G6ngora  the  play,  Amor secreto ; 
he  writes  G6ngora  a  private  letter  to  remove  a  wrong 
impression  given  by  one  Mendoza  ;  he  repeats  G6ngora's 
witty  sayings  to  his  intimates  ;  he  makes  personal  over- 
tures to  G6ngora  at  literary  gatherings ;  and,  if  G6ngora 
be  not  positively  rude,  Lope  reports  the  fact  to  the 
Duque  de  Sessa  as  a  personal  triumph  : — "  Estd  mas 
humane  conmigo,  que  le  debo  de  haber  parepdo  mas  ombre 
de  bien  de  lo  que  tt  me  ymaginava  "  ("  He  is  gentler  with 
me,  and  I  must  seem  to  him  a  better  fellow  than  he 
thought ").  Despite  all  his  ingratiating  arts,  Lope  failed 
to  conciliate  his  foe,  who  rightly  regarded  him  as  the 
chief  obstacle  in  culteranismd s  road.  The  relentless 
riddlemonger  lost  no  opportunity  of  ridiculing  Lope 
and  his  court  in  such  a  sonnet  as  the  following,  which 
Churton  Englishes  with  undisguised  gusto  : — 

"  Dear  Geese,  whose  haunt  is  where  weak  waters  flow, 

From  rude  Castilian  well-head,  cheap  supply, 

That  keeps  your  flowery  Vega  never  dry, 
True  Vega,  smooth,  but  somewhat  flat  and  low ; 
Go  ;  dabble,  play,  and  cackle  as  ye  go 

Down  that  old  stream  of  gray  antiquity; 

And  blame  the  waves  of  nobler  harmony, 
Where  birds,  whose  gentle  grace  you  cannot  know, 
Are  sailing.     Attic  wit  and  Roman  skill 

Are  theirs;  no  swans  that  die  in  feeble  song, 
But  nursed  to  life  by  Heliconian  rill, 

Where  Wisdom  breathes  in  Music.     Cease  your  wrong, 
Flock  of  the  troubled  pool :  your  vain  endeavour 
Will  doom  you  else  to  duck  and  dive  for  ever." 

The  warfare  was  carried  on  with  singular  ferocity,  the 
careless  Lope  offering  openings  at  every  turn.  "  Remove 
those  nineteen  castles  from  your  shield,"  sang  G6ngora, 
deriding  Lope's  foible  in  blazoning  his  descent.  The 


GONGORISM  TRIUMPHANT  291 

amour  with  Marta  Nevares  Santoyo  was  the  subject  of 
obscene  lampoons  innumerable.  A  passage  in  the  Filo- 
mena  volume  arabesques  the  story  of  Perseus  and  Andro- 
meda with  a  complimentary  allusion  to  an  anonymous 
poet  whose  name  Lope  withheld  :  "  so  as  not  to  cause 
annoyance."  G6ngora's  copy  of  the  Filomena  exists  with 
this  holograph  annotation  on  the  margin:  —  "If  you 
mean  yourself,  Lopillo,  then  you  are  an  idiot  without 
art  or  judgment."  Yet,  despite  a  hundred  brutal  per- 
sonalities, Lope  went  his  way  unheeding,  and  on  G6n- 
gora's  death  he  penned  a  most  brilliant  sonnet  in  praise 
of  that  "  swan  of  Betis,"  for  whom  his  affection  had 
never  changed. 

Gongora  lived  long  enough  to  know  that  he  had 
triumphed.  Tirso  de  Molina  and  Calder6n,  with  most 
of  the  younger  dramatists,  show  the  culto  influence  in 
many  plays  ;  Jauregui  forgot  his  own  principles,  and 
accepted  the  new  mode  ;  eyen_Lqpe  himself^  in _  passages 
of  his  later  writings,  yielded  to  preciosity.  Quevedo 
began  by  quoting  Epictetus's  aphorism : — Scholasticum 
esse  animal  quod  ab  omnibus  irridetur.  And  he  renders 
the  Latin  in  his  own  free  style  : — "  The  culto  brute  is  a 
general  laughing-stock."  But  the  "  culto  brute  "  smiled 
to  see  Quevedo  given  over  to  conceptismo,  an  affectation 
not  less  disastrous  in  effect  than  G6ngora's  own.  Mean- 
while enthusiastic  champions  declared  for  the  Cordoban 
master.  Martin  de  Angulo  y  Pulgar  published  his  Epis- 
tolas  satisfactorias  (1635)  in  answer  to  the  censures  of 
the  learned  Francisco  de  Cascales  ;  Pellicer  preached 
the  Gongoristic  gospel  in  his  Lecciones  solemnes  (1630) ; 
the  Defence  of  the  Fable  of  Pyramus  and  Thisbe  fills  a 
quarto  by  Cris!6bal  de  Salazar  Mardones  (1636) ;  Garcia 
de  Salcedo  Coronel's  huge  commentaries  (1636-46)  are 


I   u. 


292  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

perhaps,  more  obscure  than  anything  in  his  author's 
text ;  and,  so  far  away  as  Peru,  Juan  de  Espinosa 
Medrano,  Rector  of  Cuzco,  published  an  Apologetico  en 
favor  de  Don  Luis  de  Gongora,  Principe  de  los  Poetas 
Lyricos  de  Espana  (1694).  There  came  a  day  when,  as 
Salazar  y  Torres  informs  us,  the  Polifemo  and  the  Sole- 
dades  were  recited  on  Speech-Day  by  the  boys  in  Jesuit 
schools. 

It  took  Spain  a  hundred  years  to  rid  her  veins  of  the 
Gongoristic  poison,  and  Gongorism  has  now  become,  in 
Spain  itself,  a  synonym  for  all  that  is  bad  in  literature. 
Undoubtedly  G6ngora  did  an  infinite  deal  of  mischief : 


I  rty*s  tricks  °f  transposition  were  too  easily  learned  by 
tV^  those  hordes  of  imitators  who  see  nothing  but  the 
obvious,  and  his  verbal  audacities  were  reproduced  by 
men  without  a  tithe  of  his  taste  and  execution.  And 
yet,  though  it  be  an  unpopular  thing  to  confess,  one  has 
a  secret  sympathy  with  him  in  his  campaign.  Lope  de 
Vega  and  Cervantes  are  as  unlike  as  two  men  may  be ; 
but  they  are  twins  in  their  slapdash  methods,  in  their 
indifference  to  exquisiteness  of  form.  Their  fatal  faci- 
lity is  common  to  their  brethren  :  threadbare  phrase, 
accepted  without  thought  and  repeated  without  heed,  is, 
as  often  as  not,  the  curse  of  the  best  Spanish  work. 
It  was,  perhaps,  not  altogether  love  of  notoriety  which 
seduced  G6ngora  into  Carrillo's  ways.  He  had,  as  his 
earliest  work  proves,  a  sounder  method  than  his  fellows 
and  a  purer  artistic  conscience.  No  trace  of  care- 
lessness is  visible  in  his  juvenile  poems,  written  in  an 
obscurity  which  knew  no  encouragement.  It  is  just  to 
believe  that  his  late  ambition  was  not  all  self-seeking, 
and  that  he  aspired  to  renew,  or  rather  to  enlarge,  the 
poetic  diction  of  his  country. 


<f  ££«_ 

GONGORA'S  ACHIEVEMENT  203 

The  aim  was  excellent,  and,  if  G6ngora  finally  failed/  ' 
he  failed  partly  because  his  disciples  burlesqued  his 
theories,  and  partly  because  he  strove  to  make  words 
seryejinstead_  of  ideas.  That  his  endeavour  was  praise- 
worthy in  itself  is  as  certain  as  that  he  came  at  last 
to  regard  his  principles  as  almost  sacred.  He  doubt- 
less found  some  pleasure  in  astounding  and  annoy- 
ing the  burgess  ;  but  he  aimed  at  something  beyond 
making  readers  marvel.  And  though  he  failed  to  im- 
pose his  doctrines  permanently,  it  is  by  no  means 
certain  that  he  laboured  in  vain.  If  any  later  Spaniard 
has  worked  in  the  conscious  spirit  of  the  artist,  seeking 
to  avoid  the  commonplace,  to  express  high  thoughts 
in  terms  of  beauty — though  he  knows  it  not,  he  owes 
a  debt  to  G6ngora,  whose  hatred  of  the  commonplace 
made  Castilian  richer.  The  Soledades  and  the  Poli- 
femo  have  passed  away,  but  many  of  the  words  and 
phrases  for  which  G6ngora  was  censured  are  now  in 
constant  use  ;  and,  culteranismo  apart,  G6ngora  _ranks 
among  the  best  lyrists  of  his  land.  Cascales,  who  was 
at  once  his  friend  and  his  opponent,  said  that  there 
were  two  G6ngoras — one  an  angel  of  light,  the  other 
an  angel  of  darkness  ;  and  the  saying  was  true  in  so  far 
as  it  implied  that  in  all  circumstances  his  air  of  distinction 
never  quits  him.  Still  the  earlier  G6ngora  is  the  better, 
and  before  we  leave  him  we  should  quote,  as  an  example 
of  that  first  happy  manner,  inimitable  in  its  grace  and 
humour,  Churton's  not  too  unsuccessful  version  of  The 
Country  Bachelors  Complaint: — 

"  Time  was,  ere  Love  play'd  tricks  -with  met 

I  lived  at  ease,  a  simple  squire, 
And  sang  my  praise-sang,  fancy  free, 
At  matins  in  the  village  quire.  .  . . 


294  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

/  rambled  by  the  mountain  side, 

Down  sylvan  glades  where  streamlets  pass 

Unnumbered,  glancing  as  they  glide 
Like  crystal  serpents  through  the  grass. .  . . 

And  there  the  state  I  ruled  from  far, 

And  bade  the  winds  to  blow  for  me, 
In  succour  to  our  ships  of  war, 

That  ploughed  the  Britorts  rebel  sea; 

Oft  boasting  how  the  might  of  Spain 

The  world's  old  columns  far  outran, 
And  Hercules  must  come  again, 

And  plant  his  barriers  in  Japan.  . . . 

'  Twas  on  St.  Luke's  soft,  quiet  day, 

A  vision  to  my  sight  was  borne, 
Fair  as  the  blooming  almond  spray, 

Blue-eyed,  with  tresses  like  the  morn.  . . . 

Ah  /  then  I  saw  what  love  could  do, 

The  power  that  bids  us  fall  or  rise, 
That  wounds  the  firm  heart  through  and  through^ 

And  strikes,  like  Ccesar,  at  men's  eyes. 

I  saw  how  dupes,  that  fain  would  run, 

Are  caught,  their  breath  and  courage  spent ', 

Chased  by  a  foe  they  cannot  shun, 
Swift  as  Inquisitor  on  scent.  .  .  . 

Yet  Pve  a  trick  to  cheat  Lovers  search. 

And  refuge  find  too  long  delayed; 
ril  take  the  vows  of  Holy  Church, 

And  seek  some  reverend cloister 's  shade" 

Among  G6ngora's  followers  none  is  better  known 
than  Juan  de  Tassis  y  Peralta,  the  second  CONDE  DE 
T^VlLLAMEDiANA  (1582-1622),  whose  ancestors  came  from 
Bergamo.  His  great-grandfather,  Juan  Bautista  de 
Tassis,  entered  the  service  of  Carlos  Quinto  ;  his  grand- 
father, Raimundo  de  Tassis,  was  the  first  of  his  race  to 
live  in  Spain,  where  he  married  into  the  illustrious  family 
of  Acuna ;  his  father,  Juan  de  Tassis  y  Acufla,  rose  ta 


VILLAMEDIANA  295 

be  Ambassador  in  Paris  and  Special  Envoy  in  London. 
Villamediana's  tutors  were  two  well-known  men  of  letters  : 
Bartolome  Jimenez  Paton,  author  of  Mercurius  Trisme- 
gistusy  and  Tribaldos  de  Toledo,  whom  we  already  know 
as  editor  of  Figueroa  and  Mendoza.  After  a  short  stay 
at  Salamanca,  Villamediana  was  appointed  to  the  King's 
household,  and  in  1601  married  Ana  de  Mendoza  y  de 
la  Cerda,  grand-daughter  in  the  fifth  generation  of 
Santillana.  His  reputation  as  a  gambler  was  of  the 
worst,  and  his  winning  thirty  thousand  gold  ducats  at 
a  sitting  led  to  his  expulsion  from  court  in  1608.  He 
joined  the  army  in  Italy,  returned  to  Spain  in  1617,  and 
at  once  launched  into  epigrams  and  satires  against  all 
and  sundry.  The  court  favourites  were  his  special  mark 
— Lerma,  Osuna,  Uceda,  Rodrigo  Calder6n.  In  1618 
he  was  again  banished,  but  returned  in  1621  as  Lord- 
in-Waiting  to  the  Queen,  Isabel  de  Bourbon,  daughter 
of  Henry  of  Navarre.  At  her  request  Villamediana 
wrote  a  masque,  La  Gloria  de  Niquea,  in  which  the 
Queen  acted  on  April  8,  1622,  before  Lord  Bristol. 
If  report  speak  truly,  the  performance  led  him  to  his 
death.  When  the  second  act  opened,  an  overturned 
lamp  set  the  theatre  ablaze,  and  as  Villamediana  seized 
the  Queen  in  his  arms,  and  carried  her  out  of  danger, 
scandal  declared  the  fire  to  be  his  doing,  and  gave 
him  out  as  the  Queen's  lover.  There  is  a  well-known 
story  that  Felipe  IV.,  stealing  up  behind  the  Queen 
one  day,  placed  his  hands  on  her  eyes ;  whereon  "  Be 
quiet,  Count,"  she  said,  and  so  unwittingly  doomed 
Villamediana.  The  tale  is  even  too  well  known.  Bran- 
tome  had  already  told  it  in  Les  Dames  galantes 
before  Felipe  was  born,  and  it  really  dates  from  the 
sixth  century.  Even  so,  Villamediana's  admiration  for 

20 


296  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

the  Queen  was  openly  expressed.  He  appeared  at  a 
tournament  covered  with  silver  reales,  and  used  the 
motto,  "Mis  amores  son  reales"  (My  love  is  royal).  The 
King's  confessor,  Baltasar  de  Zufliga,  warned  him  that 
his  life  was  in  danger,  and  Villamediana  laughed  in 
his  face.  It  was  no  joke,  for  he  had  contrived  to  make 
more  dangerous  enemies  in  four  months  than  any  other 
man  has  made  in  a  lifetime.  On  August  21,  1622,  as 
he  was  alighting  from  his  coach,  a  stranger  ran  him 
through  the  body  ;  "/Jesus  !  esto  es  hecho  !  "  ("  My  God  ! 
done  for  ! ")  said  Villamediana,  and  fell  dead.  The  word 
was  passed  round  that  the  assassin,  Ignacio  Mendez, 
should  go  free ;  tongues  that  had  hitherto  wagged  were 
still.  It  is  almost  certain  that  the  murder  was  done  by 
the  King's  order.  If  it  were  so,  Felipe  IV.  had  more 
spirit  at  seventeen  than  he  ever  showed  afterwards. 

Villamediana  had  many  of  Gongora's  qualities  :  his 
courage,  his  wit,  his  sense  of  form,  his  preciosity.  In 
his  Fdbula  de  Faet6n,  as  in  his  Fdbula  de  la  Fe'nix,  he 
outdoes  his  master  in  eccentricity  and  verbal  foppery  : 
fish  become  "  swimming  birds  of  the  cerulean  seat," 
water  is  "  liquid  nutriment,"  time  "  gnaws  statues  and 
digests  the  marble " ;  and  by  hyperbaton  and  word- 
juggling  he  proves  himself  as  culto  as  he  can.  But  it 
is  fair  to  say  that  when  it  pleases  him  he  is  as  simple 
and  direct  as  the  early  Gongora.  It  must  suffice  here 
to  quote  Churton's  rendering  of  a  sonnet  on  the  pro- 
posed marriage  of  the  Infanta  Dofta  Maria  to  the  Prince 
of  Wales  : — 

"  By  Heresy  upborne,  that  giantess 

Whose  pride  heaveris  battlements  infancy  scales^ 
With  Villiers  his  proud  Admiral^  Charles  of  Wales 
To  Mary's  heavenly  sphere  would  boldly  press. 


PARAVICINO  297 

A  heretic  he  is,  he  must  confess 

Heaven 's  light  nfer  led  his  knighthood's  roving  sails; 

But  the  bright  cause  his  error  counter-vails, 
And  heavenly  beauty  pleads  for  love's  excess. 
So  now  the  lamb  with  cub  of  wolf  must  mate; 

The  dove  must  take  the  raven  to  her  nest; 
Our  palace,  like  the  old  ark,  must  shelter  all : 
Confusion,  as  of  Babylon  the  Great, 

Is  round  us,  and  the  faith  of  Spain,  oppressed 
By  fine  State-reason,  trembles  to  its  fall" 

This  expresses  —  much  more  clearly  than  the  Gloria 
de  Niquea — the  true  feeling  of  Gongora  and  his  circle 
towards  Steenie  and  Baby  Charles. 

Less  nervous  and  energetic,  but  not  less  fantastic 
than  Villamediana's  worst  extravagances,  are  the  Obras 
postumas  divinas y  humanas  (1641)  of  HORTENSIO  FELIX 
PARAVICINO  Y  ARTEAGA  (1580-1633),  whose  praises  were 
sung  by  Lope  : — 

"  Divine  Hortensio,  whose  exalted  strain, 

Sweet,  pure,  and  witty,  censure  cannot  wound, 
The  Cyril  and  the  Chrysostom  of  Spain'' 

The  divine  Hortensio  was  court-preacher  to  Felipe  IV., 
and  enchanted  his  congregations  by  preaching  in  the 
culto  style.  His  verses  exaggerate  Gongora' s  worst  faults, 
arid  are" disfigured  by  fulsome  flattery  of  his  leader,  be- 
fore whom,  as  he  says,  he  is  dumb  with  admiration. 
As  thus  : — "  May  my  offering  in  gracious  cloud,  in  equal 
wealth  of  fragrance,  bestrew  thine  altars."  Paravicino, 
whose  works  were  published  under  the  name  of  Arteaga, 
was  a  powerful  centre  of  Gongoristic  influence,  and  did 
more  than  most  men  tojbrce  culteranismo jnto  fashion. 
In  sermons,  poems,  and  a  masque  entitled  Gridonia, 
he  never  ceases  to  spread  the  plague,  which  lasted  for 
a  century,  attacking  writers  as  far  apart  as  Ambrosio 


298  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

Roca  y  Serna  (whose  Luz  del  Alma  appeared  in  1623), 
and  Agusti'n  de  Salazar,  the  author  of  the  Citara  de 
Apolo  (1677). 

Meanwhile  a  few  held  out  against  the  mode.  The 
Sevillan,  Juan  de  Arguijo  (?  d.  1629),  continued  the  tradi- 
tion of  Herrera,  writing  in  Italian  measures  with  a  smooth- 
ness of  versification  and  a  dignified  correctness  which  drew 
applause  from  one  camp  and  hissing  from  the  other.  His 
N/"townsman,  JUAN  DE  TAuREGUi  Y  AGUILAR  (?  1570-1650), 
came  into  notice  with  his  version  of  Tasso's  Aminta  (1607), 
one  of  the  best  translations  ever  made,  deserving  of  the 
high  praise  which  Cervantes  bestows  on  it  and  on  Cris- 
t6bal  de  Figueroa's  rendering  of  the  Pastor  Fido : — "  They 
make  us  doubt  which  is  the  translation  and  which  the 
original."  In  his  Aminfa,  as  in  his  original  poems, 
Jauregui's  style  is  a  model  of  purity  and  refinement,  as 
might  be  expected  from  the  Discurso  portico  launched 
later  against  G6ngora ;  but  the  tide  was  too  strong  for 
him.  His  Orfeo  (1624)  shows  signs  of  wavering,  and  in 
his  translation,  the  Farsalia,  which  was  not  published  till 
1684,  he  is  almost  as  extreme  a  Gongorist  as  the  worst. 
Still  it  should  be  remembered  that  Lucan  also  was  a 
Cordoban,  practising  early  Gongorism  at  Nero's  court, 
and  a  translator  is  prone  to  reproduce  the  defects  of  his 
original.  Jauregui  has  some  points  of  resemblance  with 
Rossetti,  was  a  famous  artist  in  his  day,  and  is  said,  on 
the  strength  of  a  dubious  passage  in  the  prologue  to  the 
Novelas,  to  have  painted  Cervantes. 

ESTEBAN  MANUEL  DE  VJLLEGAS>(  1596-1 669)  shows  rare 
poetic  qualities  in  his  Eroticas  6  Amatorias  (1617),  in  which 
he  announces  himself  as  the  rising  sun.  Sicut  sol  matu- 
tinus  is  printed  on  his  title-page,  where  those  waning 
stars,  Lope,  Calder6n,  and  Quevedo,  are  also  supplied 


CONCEPTISMO  299 

with  a  prophetic  motto:  Me  surgente,  quid  istcz?  His 
imitations  of  Anacreon  and  Catullus  are  done  with  amaz- 
ing gusto,  all  the  more  wonderful  when  we  remember 
that  his  "  sweet  songs  and  suave  delights  "  were  written 
at  fourteen,  retouched  and  published  at  twenty.  But 
Villegas  is  one  of  the  great  disappointments  of  Castilian 
literature  :  he  married  in  1626,  deserted  verse  for  law, 
and  ended  life  a  poor,  embittered  attorney.  The  Sevillan 
canon  and  royal  librarian,  FRANCISCO  DE  RIOJA  (?  1586- 
1659),  follows  the  example  of  Herrera,  his  sonnets  and 
silvas  being  distinguished  for  their  correct  form  and 
their  philosophic  melancholy.  But  Rioja  has  been  un- 
lucky. One  poem,  entitled  Las  Ruinas  de  Itdlica,  has 
won  for  him  a  very  great  reputation ;  and  yet,  in  fact,  as 
Fernandez-Guerra  y  Orbe  has  proved,  the  Ruinas  is  due 
to  Rodrigo  Caro  (1573-1647),  the  archaeologist  who  wrote 
the  Memorial  de  Utrera  and  the  Antigiiedades  de  Sevilla. 
Adolfo  de  Castro  goes  further,  ascribing  the  Epistola 
moral  d  Fabio  to  Pedro  Fernandez  de  Andrado,  author 
of  the  Libro  de  la  Gineta.  Thus  despoiled  of  two  admir- 
able pieces,  Rioja  is  less  important  than  he  seemed  thirty 
years  since ;  yet,  even  so,  he  ranks,  with  the  Prfncipe 
de  Esquihche  (1581-1658)  and  the  Conde  de  Rebolledo 
(1597-1676),  among  the  sounder  influences  of  his  time. 

The  Segovian  poet,  Alonso  de  Ledesma  Buitrago 
(1552-1623),  founded  the  school  of  conceptismo  with  its 
metaphysical  conceits,  philosophic  paradoxes,  and  sen- 
tentious moralisings,  as  of  a  Seneca  gone  mad.  His 
Concept os  espirituales  and  Juegos  de  la  Noche  Buena  (1611) 
lead  up  to  the  allegorical  gibberish  of  his  Monstruo 
Imaginado  (1615),  and  to  the  perveriedf_jj^Qr^iity  of 
Alonso  de  Bonilla's  Nuevo  Jardin  de  Flores  divinas  (1617). 
Conceptismo  was  no  less  an  evil  than  culteranismo,  but  it 


300  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

was  less  likely  to  spread  :  the  latter  played  with  words, 
the  former  with  ideas.  A  bizarre  vocabulary  was  enough 
for  a  man  to  pass  -asculto;  the  conceptista  must  he  equipped 
with  various  learning,  and  must  have  a  smattering  of 
philosophy.  Under  such  chiefs  as  Ledesina  and  Bonilla 
the  new  mania  must  have  died  ;  but  conceptismo  was  in 
the  air,  and,  as  Carrillo  seduced  G6ngora,  so  Ledesma 
captured  FRANCIS  GOMEZ  DE  QUEVEDO  Y  VILLEGAS 
(1580-1645):  (it  should  be  said,  however,  that  Quevedo 
nowhere  mentions  Ledesma  by  name).  Like  Lope,  like 
Calder<5n,  Quevedo  was  a  highlander.  His  family  boasted 
the  punning  motto  : — "  I  am  he  who  stopped — el  que  vedo 
— the  Moors'  advance."  His  father  (who  died  early)  and 
mother  both  held  posts  at  court.  At  Alcali  de  Henares, 
from  1596  onwards,  Quevedo  took  honours  in  theology, 
law,  French,  Latin,  Greek,  Arabic,  and  Hebrew.  He 
is  also  said  to  have  studied  medicine ;  and  certainly 
he  hated  Sangrado  as  Dickens  hated  Bumble.  When 
scarcely  out  of  his  teens  he  corresponded  with  Justus 
Lipsius,  who  hailed  him  as  /xeya  KvSos  'Ifirjptov,  and  at 
Madrid  he  speedily  became  the  talk  of  the  town.  Strange 
stories  were  told  of  him :  that  he  had  pinked  his  man  at 
Alcala,  that  he  ran  Captain  Rodrfguez  through  the  body 
rather  than  yield  him  the  wall,  that  he  put  an  escaped 
panther  to  the  sword,  that  he  disarmed  the  famous 
fencing-master,  Pacheco  Narvaez.  This  last  tale  is  true, 
and  is  curious  in  view  of  Quevedo's  physical  defects. 
His  reply  to  Vicencio  Valerio  in  Su  Espada  por  Santiago 
is  well  known:— "He  says  I  hobble,  and  can't  see.  I 
should  lie  from  head  to  foot  if  I  denied  it :  my  eyes 
and  my  gait  would  contradict  me." 

For  all  his  short  sight  and  clubbed  feet,  he  was  ever 
too  ready  with  his  rapier.     On  Maundy  Thursday,  1611, 


QUEVEDO  301 

he  witnessed  a  scuffle  between  a  man  and  woman  during 
Tenebrae  in  St.  Martin's  Church.  He  intervened,  the 
argument  was  continued  outside,  swords  were  crossed, 
and  Quevedo's  opponent  fell  mortally  wounded.  As  the 
man  was  a  noble,  Quevedo  prudently  escaped  from 
possible  consequences  to  Sicily.  He  returned  to  his 
estate,  La  Torre  de  Juan  Abad,  in  1612,  but  soon  wearied 
of  country  life,  and  was  sent  on  diplomatic  missions  to 
Genoa,  Milan,  Venice,  and  Rome.  On  Osuna's  promotion 
to  Naples,  Quevedo  became  Finance  Minister,  proving 
himself  a  capable  administrator.  In  1618  he  meddled 
in  the  Spanish  plot  which  forms  the  motive  of  Otway's 
Venice  Preserved,  and,  disguised  as  a  beggar,  escaped 
from  the  bravos  told  off  to  murder  him.  His  public 
career  ended  at  this  time,  for  his  subsequent  appoint- 
ment as  Felipe  IV.'s  secretary  was  merely  nominal.  In 
1627  he  shared  in  a  furious  polemic.  Santa  Teresa  was 
canonised  in  1622,  and,  at  the  joint  instance  of  Carmelites 
and  Jesuits,  was  made  co-patron  of  Spain  with  Santiago. 
The  Papal  Bull  (July  31,  1627)  divided  Spain  into  two 
camps.  Quevedo,  who  was  of  the  Order  of  Santiago — 
"  red  with  the  blood  of  the  brave  " — took  up  the  cudgels 
for  St.  James,  was  branded  a  "  hypocritical  blackguard  " 
by  one  party,  and  was  extolled  by  the  other  as  the 
"  Captain  of  Combat,"  "  the  Ensign  of  the  Apostle."  He 
shamed  Pope,  King,  Olivares,  the  religious,  and  half  the 
laity,  and  the  Bull  was  withdrawn  (June  28,  1630).  The 
victory  cost  him  a  year's  exile,  and  when  Olivares  offered 
him  the  embassy  at  Genoa,  he  refused  it,  on  the  ground 
that  he  did  not  wish  to  have  his  mouth  thus  closed. 
After  his  unlucky  marriage  to  Esperanza  de  Mendoza, 
widow  of  Juan  Ferndndez  de  Heredia,  he  began  a  cam- 
paign against  the  royal  favourite.  Olivares'  turn  came 


302  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

in  December  1639,  when  the  King  found  by  his  plate 
a  copy  of  verses  urging  him  to  cease  his  extravagance  and 
to  dismiss  his  incapable  ministers.  Quevedo  was — per- 
haps rightly — suspected  of  writing  these  lines,  was  arrested 
at  midnight,  and  was  whisked  away,  half  dressed,  to  the 
monastery  of  St.  Mark  in  Le6n.  For  four  years  he  was 
imprisoned  in  a  cell  below  the  level  of  the  river,  and, 
when  released  after  Olivares'  fall  in  1643,  his  health 
was  broken.  A  flash  of  his  old  humour  appears  in  his 
reply  to  the  priest  who  begged  him  to  arrange  for  music 
at  his  funeral : — "  Nay,  let  them  pay  that  hear  it." 

As  a  prose  writer  he  began  with  a  Life  of  St.  Thomas 
of  Villanueva  (1620),  and  ended  with  a  Life  of  St.  Paul 
the  Apostle  (1644).  These,  and  his  other  moralisings — 
Virtue  Militant,  the  Cradle  and  the  Tomb — call  for  no 
notice  here.  The  Politica  de  Dios  (1618)  is  apparently  an 
abstract  plea  for  absolutism  ;  in  fact,  it  exposes  the  weak- 
ness of  Spanish  administration  just  as  the  Marcus  Brutus 
(1644)  is  a  vehicle  for  opinions  on  contemporary  politics. 
Learned  and  acute,  these  treatises  show  Quevedo's  con- 
cern for  his  country's  future,  and  a  passage  in  his  sixty- 
eighth  sonnet  forecasts  the  future  of  the  Spanish  colonies : 
— "  'Tis  likelier  far,  O  Spain !  that  what  thou  alone  didst 
take  from  all,  all  will  take  from  thee  alone  "- 

"  Y es  mdsfacil!  oh  Espana  fen  muchas  modas 
Que  lo  que  d  todos  les  quitaste  sola, 
Te puedan  d  ti  sola  guitar  todos" 

The  prophecy  is  just  being  fulfilled,  and  the  chief  interest 
of  Quevedo's  prose  treatises  lies  in  their  conceptismo — 
the  flashy  epigram,  the  pompous  paradox,  the  strained 
antithesis,  the  hairsplitting  and  refining  in  and  out  of 
season.  It  was  vain  for  Quevedo  to  edit  Luis  de  Leon 


THE  BUSC6N  :     THE  VISIONS  303 

and  Torre  as  a  protest  against  Gongorism,  for  in  his  own 
practice  he  substituted  one  affectation  for  another. 

The  true  and  simpler  Quevedo  is  to  be  sought  else- 
where. His  picaresque  Historia  de  la  Vida  del  Buscon, 
best  known  by  its  unauthorised  title,  El  Gran  Tacano 
(The  Prime  Scoundrel),  though  not  published  till  1626, 
was  probably  written  soon  after  1608.  Pablo,  son  of 
a  barber  and  a  loose  woman,  follows  a  rich  schoolfellow 
to  Alcali,  where  he  shines  in  every  kind  of  devilry. 
Thence  he  passes  into  a  gang  of  thieves,  is  imprisoned, 
lives  as  a  sham  cripple,  an  actor,  a  bravo,  and  finally 
— his  author  being  weary  of  him — emigrates  to  America. 
There  is  no  attempt  at  creating  character,  no  vulgar  ob- 
trusion of  Alemdn's  moralising  tone  :  such  amusement  as 
the  novel  contains  is  afforded  by  the  invention  of  heartless 
incident  and  the  acrid  rendering  of  villany.  The  harsh 
jeering,  the  intense  brutality,  the  unsympathetic  wit  and 
art  of  the  Buscon,  make  it  one  of  the  cleverest  books  in 
the  world,  as  it  is  one  of  the  cruellest  and  coarsest  in  its 
misanthropic  enjoyment  of  baseness  and  pain.  No  less 
characteristic  of  Quevedo  are  his  Suenos  (Visions),  printed 
in  1627.  These  fantastic  pieces  are  really  five  in  number, 
though  most  collections  print  seven  or  eight ;  for  the 
Infierno  Enmendado  (Hell  Reformed)  is  not  a  vision,  but 
is  rather  a  sequel  to  the  Politica  de  Dios ;  the  Casa  de 
Locos  de  Amor  is  probably  the  work  of  Quevedo's  friend, 
Lorenzo  van  der  Hammen  ;  and  the  Fortunacon  Seso  was 
not  written  till  1635.  Quevedo  himself  calls  the  SueHo 
de  la  Muerte  (Vision  of  Death)  the  fifth  and  last  of  the 
series.  Satire  in  Lucian's  manner  had  already  been  in- 
troduced into  Spanish  literature  by  Valde"s  in  the  Didlogo 
de  Mercurio y  Caron,  in  the  Crotalon  (which  most  autho- 
rities ascribe  to  Crist6bal  de  Villal6n),  and  in  the  Coloquio 


304  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

de  los  Perros.  In  witty  observation  and  ridicule  of  whole 
sections  of  society,  Quevedo  almost  vies  with  Cervantes, 
though  his  unfeeling  cynicism  gives  his  work  an  indi- 
vidual flavour.  His  lost  poets  are  doomed  to  hear  each 
other's  verses  for  eternity,  his  statesmen  jostle  bandits, 
doctors  and  murderers  end  their  careers  as  brethren, 
comic  men  dwell  in  an  inferno  apart  lest  their  jokes 
should  damp  hell's  fires, — grim  jests  which  may  be  read 
in  Roger  L'Estrange's  spirited  amplification. 

Quevedo's  serious  poems  suffer  from  the  conceptismo 
which  disfigures  his  ambitious  prose  ;  his  wit,  his  com- 
plete knowledge  of  low  life,  his  mastery  of  language 
show  to  greater  advantage  in  his  picaroon  ballads  and 
exercises  in  lighter  verse.  His  freedom  of  tone  has 
brought  upon  him  an  undeserved  reputation  for  ob- 
scenity ;  the  fact  being  that  lewd,  timorous  fellows  have 
fathered  their  indecencies  upon  him.  A  passage  from 
his  Last  Will  of  Don  Quixote  may  be  cited,  as  Mr.  Gibson 
gives  it,  to  illustrate  his  natural  method  : — 

"  Up  and  answered  Sancho  Panza; 

List  to  what  he  said  or  sung, 
With  an  accent  rough  and  ready 

And  a  forty-parson  tongue: 
"Tt's  not  reason,  good  my  master, 

When  thou  goest  forth,  I  wis, 
To  account  to  thy  Creator, 

Thou  shouldst  utter  stuff  like  this} 
As  trustees,  name  thou  the  Curate 

Who  confesscth  thee  betimes, 
And  Per  Anton,  our  good  Provost, 

And  the  goat-herd  Gaffer  Grimes; 
Make  clean  sweep  of  the  Esplandians, 

Who  have  dinned  us  with  their  clatter; 
Call  thou  in  a  ghostly  hermit, 

Who  may  aid  thee  in  the  matter} 


GUILLEN   DE  CASTRO  305 

'  Well  thou  speakest]  up  and  answered 

Don  Quixote,  nowise  dumb  ; 
'  Hie  thee  to  the  Rock  of  Dolour ; 

Bid  Beltenebros  to  come ! ' " 

Overpraised  and  overblamed,  Quevedo  attempted  too 
much.  He  had  it  in  him  to  be  a  poet,  or  a  theologian, 
or  a  stoic  philosopher,  or  a  critic,  or  a  satirist,  or  a 
statesman :  he  insisted  on  being  all  of  these  together, 
and  he  has  paid  the  penalty.  Though  he  never  fails 
ignominiously,  he  rarely  achieves  a  genuine  success,  and 
the  bulk  of  his  writing  is  now  neglected  because  of  its 
local  and  ephemeral  interest.  Yet  he  deserves  honour 
as  the  most  widely-gifted  Spaniard  of  his  time,  as  a 
strong  and  honest  man  in  a  corrupt  age,  and  as 
a  brilliant  writer  whose  hatred  of  the  commonplace 
beguiled  him  into  adopting  a  dull  innovation.  It  is  not 
likely  that  his  numerous  inedited  lyrics  will  do  more 
than  increase  our  knowledge  of  Gongora's  and  Mont- 
alban's  failings ;  but  the  two  plays  promised  by  Sr. 
Menendez  y  Pelayo — Como  ha  de  ser  el  Privado  and 
Pero  Vazquez  de  Escamilla — cannot  but  reveal  a  new 
aspect  of  a  many-sided  genius. 

Quevedo  was  not,  however,  known  as  a  dramatist  to 
the  same  extent  as  the  Valencian,  GUILLEN  DE  CASTRO  Y 
BELLVIS  (1569-1631),  an  erratic  soldier  who  has  achieved 
renown  in  and  out  of  Spain.  Castro  is  sometimes  cre- 
dited with  the  Prodigio  de  los  Monies,  whence  Calder6n 
derived  his  Mdgico  Prodigioso,  but  the  Prodigio  is  almost 
certainly  by  Lope.  Castro's  fame  rests  on  his  Mocedades 
del  Cid(T\\&  Cid's  First  Exploits),  a  dramatic  adaptation  of 
national  tradition  in  Lope's  manner.  Ximena,  daughter 
of  Lozano,  loves  Rodrigo  before  the  action  begins,  and, 
on  Lozano's  death  by  Rodrigo's  hand,  her  passion  and 


306  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

her  duty  are  in  conflict.  Rodrigo's  victories  against  the 
Moors  help  to  expiate  his  crime  :  on  a  false  rumour  of  his 
death,  Ximena  avows  her  love  for  him,  and  patriotism 
combines  with  inclination  to  yield  a  dramatic  ending. 
Corneille,  treating  Castro's  play  with  the  freedom  of  a 
man  of  genius,  founded  the  French  school  of  tragedy  ; 
but  not  all  his  changes  are  improvements.  By  limiting 
the  time  of  action  he  needlessly  emphasises  the  difficulty 
of  the  situation.  Castro's  device  is  sounder  when  he 
prolongs  the  space  which  shall  diminish  Ximena's  filial 
grief  and  increase  her  admiration  of  the  Cid.  The  strife 
between  love  and  honour  exists  already  in  the  Spanish, 
and  Corneille's  merit  lies  in  his  suppression  of  Castro's 
superfluous  third  act,  in  his  magnificent  rhetoric,  be- 
side which  the  Spaniard's  simplicity  seems  weak.  But 
though  Castro  wrote  no  masterpiece,  he  begot  one 
based  upon  his  original  conception,  and  some  of  Cor- 
neille's most  admired  tirades  are  but  amplified  trans- 
lations. 

Less  remarkable  as  a  playwright  than  as  a  novelist, 
the  lawyer,  TJTTIS_ .Vjjjijgz^njjt.  ^TTEV^M_(T57Q-T^43);  is 
reputed  to  have  written  no  fewer  than  four  hundred 
pieces  for  the  stage.  Of  these,  eighty  survive,  mostly  on 
historic  themes,  which — as  in  El  Valor  no  tiene  Edad — are 
treated  with  tiresome  extravagance ;  but  the  most  diffi- 
cult critics  have  found  praise  for  Mas  peso,  el  Key  que 
la  Sangre  (King  First,  Blood  Second).  The  story  is  that, 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  Guzman  the  Good  held  Tarifa 
for  King  Sancho  ;  the  rebel  Infante,  Don  Juan,  called 
upon  him  to  surrender  under  pain  of  his  son's  death ; 
for  answer,  Guzman  threw  his  dagger  over  the  battle- 
ment, and  saw  the  boy  murdered  before  his  eyes.  Rarely 
has  the  old  Castilian  tradition  of  loyalty  to  the  King  been 


VELEZ  DE  GUEVARA  307 

presented  with  more  picturesque  force,  and  few  scenes 
in  any  dramatic  literature  surpass  that  last  one  on  the 
raising  of  the  siege,  when  Guzman  points  to  his  child's 
corpse.  Velez  de  Guevara  collaborated  with  Rojas  Zo- 
rrilla  and  Mira  de  Amescua  in  The  Devil's  Suit  against  the 
Priest  of  Madrilejos,  a  play  in  which  a  lunatic  girl  saves 
her  life  by  pleading  demoniacal  possession.  The  idea 
is  characteristic  of  Guevara's  uncanny  invention ;  but  the 
Inquisition  frowned  upon  stage  representatives  of  exor- 
cism, and,  though  the  author's  orthodoxy  was  not  ques- 
tioned, the  play  was  withdrawn.  He  is  best  remembered 
for  his  satire  El  Diablo  Cojuelo  (1641),  which  describes 
observations  taken  during  a  flight  through  the  air  by  a 
student  who  releases  the  Lame  Devil  from  a  flask,  and 
is  repaid  by  glimpses  of  life  in  courts  and  slums  and 
stews.  Le  Sage,  in  his  Diable  Boiteux,  has  greatly  im- 
proved upon  the  first  conception  ;  but  the  original  is 
of  excellent  humour,  and  the  style  is  as  idiomatic  as 
the  best  Castilian  can  be.  Felipe  IV.  is  said  to  have 
smiled  only  three  times  in  his  life — twice  at  quips  by 
Guevara,  who  was  his  chamberlain. 

Of  all  Lope's  imitators  the  most  undisguised  is  the 
son  of  the  King's  bookseller,  Doctor  JUAN  PEREZ  DE 
MONTALBAN  (1602-38),  who  became  a  priest  of  the  Con- 
gregation of  St.  Peter  in  1625.  His  father  was  plain 
Juan  Perez  (as  who  should  say  John  Smith),  and  the 
son  was  cruelly  bantered  for  his  airs  and  graces: — "Put 
Doctor  in  front  and  Montalban  behind,  and  plebeian 
Perez  shines  an  aristocrat."  It  was  rumoured  that  his 
Orfeo  (1624),  written  to  compete  with  Jduregui,  was  really 
Lope's  work,  given  by  the  patriarch  to  start  his  favourite 
in  life.  The  story  is  probably  false,  for  the  verse  lacks 
Lope's  ease  and  grace  ;  but  the  Orfeo  won  Montalban 


308  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

a  name,  and — there  is  no  such  luck  for  modern  minor 
poets — in  1625  a  Peruvian  merchant  expressed  his  ad- 
miration by  settling  a  pension  on  the  young  priest. 
Montalban  lived  in  closest  intimacy  with  Lope,  who 
taught  his  young  admirer  stagecraft,  and  helped  him 
with  introductions  to  managers.  Unluckily  he  sought 
to  rival  his  master  in  fecundity  as  well  as  in  method, 
and  the  effort  broke  him.  He  is  often  credited  with 
writing  the  Tribunal  of  Just  Vengeance,  a  work  which 
describes  Quevedo  as  "  Master  of  Error,  Doctor  of 
Impudence,  Licentiate  of  Buffoonery,  Bachelor  of  Filth, 
Professor  of  Vice,  and  Archdevil  of  Mankind."  Quevedo, 
on  his  side,  had  a  grievance,  inasmuch  as  Perez,  the 
bookseller,  had  pirated  the  Buscon.  He  prophesied  that 
Montalbin  would  die  a  lunatic,  and,  in  fact,  his  words 
came  true. 

Pellicer  credits  Montalban  with  literary  theories  of  his 
own,  but  they  are  mere  repetitions  of  Lope's  precepts  in 
the  Arte  Nuevo.  Like  his  master,  Montalban  has  a  keen 
eye  for  a  situation,  for  the  dramatic  value  of  a  popular 
story,  as  he  shows  in  his  Amantes  de  Teruel,  those  eternal 
types  of  constancy ;  but  he  writes  too  hurriedly,  with 
more  ambition  than  power,  is  infected  with  culteratusmo, 
and,  though  he  apes  Lope  with  superficial  success  in  his 
secular  plays,  fails  utterly  when  he  attempts  the  sacred 
drama.  His  own  age  thought  most  highly  of  No  hay 
Vida  como  la  Honra,  one  of  the  first  pieces  to  have  a 
"run"  on  the  Spanish  stage;  but  the  Amantes  is  his 
best  work,  and  its  vigorous  dialogue  may  still  be  read 
with  emotion. 

These  lovers  of  Teruel  were  also  staged  by  a  man  of 
genius  whose  pseudonym  has  completely  overshadowed 
his  family  name  of  Gabriel  Tellez.  The  career  of  TiRSO 


TIRSO  DE  MOLINA  309 

DE  MOLINA  (1571-1648)  is  often  dismissed  in  six  lines 
packed  with  errors  ;  but  the  publication  of  Sr.  Cotarelo 
y  Mori's  study  has  made  such  summary  treatment  im- 
possible in  the  future.  Writers  whose  imagination 
does  service  for  research  have  invented  the  fables  that 
Tirso  led  a  scandalous,  stormy  life,  and  that  the  repent- 
ant sinner  took  orders  in  middle  age.  These  legends 
are  baseless,  and  are  conceived  on  the  theory  that  Tirso's 
outspoken  plays  imply  a  deep  knowledge  of  human 
nature's  weak  side  and  of  the  shadiest  picaresque  cor- 
ners. It  appears  to  be  forgotten  that  Tirso  spent  years 
in  the  confessional  :  no  bad  position  for  the  study  of 
frailty.  It  seems  certain  that  he  was  born  at  Madrid, 
and  that  he  studied  at  Alcala  is  clear  from  Mati'as  de  los 
Reyes'  dedication  of  El  Agravio  agraviado.  The  date 
of  his  profession  is  not  known ;  but  he  is  named  as  a 
Mercenarian  monk  and  as  "  a  comic  poet "  by  the  actor- 
manager,  Andres  de  Claramonte  y  Corroy,  in  his  Letania 
moral,  written  before  1610,  though  not  printed  till  1613. 
His  holograph  of  Santa  Juana  is  dated  in  1613  from 
Toledo,  where  he  also  wrote  his  Cigarrales.  Passages 
in  La  Gallega  Mari  Hernandez  imply  a  residence  in 
Galicia.  That  he  lived  in  Seville,  and  visited  the  island 
of  Santo  Domingo,  is  certain,  though  the  dates  are  not 
known.  In  1619  he  was  Superior  of  the  Mercenarian 
convent  at  Trujillo,  an  appointment  which  implies  that 
he  was  a  monk  of  long  standing.  In  1620  Lope  dedi- 
cated to  him  Lo  Fingido  verdadero,  and  in  the  same  year 
Tirso  returned  the  compliment  by  dedicating  his  Villana 
de  Vallecas  to  Lope.  Though  he  competed  in  1622  at 
the  Madrid  feasts  in  honour  of  St.  Isidore,  he  failed  to 
receive  even  honourable  mention.  Ten  years  later  he 
became  official  chronicler  of  his  order,  and  showed  his 


310  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

opinion  of  his  predecessor,  Alonso  Rem6n — with  whom 
he  has  been  confounded,  even  by  Cervantes — by  re- 
writing Rem6n's  history.  In  1634  ne  was  made  Definidor 
General  for  Castile,  and  his  name  reappears  as  licenser 
of  books,  or  in  legal  documents.  He  died  on  March  21, 
1648,  being  then  Prior  at  Soria,  renowned  as  a  preacher 
of  most  tranquil,  virtuous  life,  the  very  opposite  of  what 
ignorant  fancy  has  feigned  of  him.  He  is  known  to 
have  written  plays  so  recently  as  1638,  for  the  holograph 
of  his  Quinas  de  Portugal  bears  that  date  ;  but  the  pre- 
face to  the  Deleitar  Aprovechado  shows  that  his  popularity 
was  on  the  wane  in  1635.  His  last  years  were  given  to 
writing  a  Genealogia  del  Conde  de  Sdstago  and  the  chronicle 
of  the  Mercenarian  Order. 

Tirso's  earliest  printed  volume  is  his  Cigarralesde  Toledo 
(1621  or  1624),  so  called  from  a  local  Toledan  word 
for  a  summer  country-house  set  down  in  an  orchard. 
The  book  is  a  collection  of  tales  and  verse,  supposed  to 
be  recited  during  five  days  of  festivity  which  have  fol- 
lowed a  wedding.  Tirso,  indeed,  announces  stories  and 
verse  which  shall  last  twenty  days ;  yet  he  breaks  off  at 
the  fifth,  announcing  a  Second  Part,  which  never  ap- 
peared. Critics  profess  to  find  in  Tirso's  tales  some 
traces  of  Cervantes,  who  is  praised  in  the  text  as  the 
"  Spanish  Boccaccio "  :  the  influence  of  the  Italian 
Boccaccio  is  far  more  obvious  throughout,  and — save 
for  a  tinge  of  Gongorism — Los  Tres  Maridos  burlados 
might  well  pass  as  a  splendid  adaptation  from  the 
Decamerone,  Still,  even  in  the  Cigarrales  the  born  play- 
wright asserts  himself  in  C6mo  han  de  ser  los  Amigos,  in 
El  Celoso  prudente,  and  in  one  of  Tirso's  most  brilliant 
pieces,  El  Vergonsoso  en  Palacio.  A  second  collection 
entitled  Deleitar  Aprovechado  (Business  with  Profit), 


TIRSO'S  THEATRE  311 

issued  in  1635,  contains  three  pious  tales  of  no  great 
merit,  and  several  autos,  one  of  which — El  Colmenero 
divino — is  Tirso's  best  attempt  at  religious  drama. 

Essentially  a  dramatist,  he  is  to  be  but  partially  studied 
in  his  theatre,  of  which  the  first  part  appeared  in  1627, 
the  third  in  1634,  the  second  and  fourth  in  1635,  and 
the  fifth  in  1637.  A  famous  play  is  the  Condenado  por 
Desconfiado  (The  Doubter  Damned),  of  which  some  would 
deprive  Tirso ;  yet  the  treatment  is  specially  charac- 
teristic of  him.  Paulo,  who  has  left  the  world  for  a 
hermitage,  prays  for  light  as  to  his  future  salvation, 
dreams  that  his  sins  exceed  his  merits,  and  is  urged  by 
the  devil  to  go  to  Naples  to  seek  out  Enrico,  \vhose 
ending  will  be  like  his  own.  Paulo  obeys,  discovers 
Enrico  to  be  a  rook  and  bully,  and  in  despair  takes  to 
a  bandit's  life.  Meanwhile  Enrico  shows  a  hint  of  virtue 
by  refusing  to  slay  an  old  man  whose  appearance  re- 
minds the  bully  of  his  own  father,  and  kills  the  master 
who  taunted  him  with  flinching  from  a  bargain.  He 
escapes  to  where  Paulo  and  his  gang  are  hidden.  Garbed 
as  a  hermit,  Paulo  vainly  exhorts  Enrico  to  confess, 
though  the  criminal  finally  repents,  and  is  seen  by 
Pedrisco — Paulo's  servant — passing  to  heaven.  Duped 
by  the  devil,  Paulo  refuses  to  believe  Pedrisco's  story, 
and  dies  damned  through  his  own  distrust  and  pride. 
The  substance  of  this  play,  which  is  contrived  with 
abounding  skill  and  theological  knowledge,  is  the  old 
conflict  between  free-will  and  predestination.  Some 
would  ascribe  the  play  to  Lope,  because  the  pastoral 
scenes  are  in  his  manner,  but  the  notion  that  Lope  would 
publish  under  Tirso's  name  is  untenable.  Sr.  Menendez 
y  Pelayo  will  not  be  suspected  of  a  prejudice  against 
Lope ;  and  he  avers,  in  so  many  words,  that  the  only 


312  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

playwright  in  Spain  with  enough  theology  to  write  the 
Condenado  was  Tirso,  who,  had  he  written  nothing  else, 
would  rank  among  the  greatest  Spanish  dramatists. 

The  piece  which  has  won  Tirso  immortality  is  his 
Burlador  de  Sevilla  y  Convidado  de  Piedra  (The  Seville 
Mocker  and  the  Stone  Guest),  first  printed  at  Barcelona 
in  1630  as  the  seventh  of  Twelve  New  Plays  by  Lope  de 
Vega  Carpioy  and  other  Authors ;  and  the  omission  of 
the  Burlador  from  all  authorised  editions  has  led  critics 
of  authority  to  question  Tirso's  authorship.1  The  dis- 
covery in  1878  of  a  new  version  caused  Manuel  de  la 
Revilla  to  declare  that  the  play  was  by  Calder6n,  on 
the  ground  that  Calder6n's  name  is  on  the  title-page, 
and  that  Calderdn  never  trespassed  on  other  men's 
property.  This  is  an  overstatement :  to  mention  but 
a  few  instances,  Calderon's  A  Secreto  Agravio  Secreta 
Venganza  is  rearranged  from  Tirso's  Celoso  prudent e ; 
his  Secreto  d  Voces  from  Tirso's  Amar  por  Arte  mayor, 
while  the  second  act  of  Calder6n's  Cabellos  de  Absalon 
is  lifted,  almost  word  for  word,  from  the  third  act  of 
Tirso's  Venganza  de  Tamar.  On  the  whole,  then,  Tirso 
may  be  taken  as  the  creator  of  Don  Juan.  No  analysis 
is  needed  of  a  play  with  which  Mozart,  the  most  Athenian 
of  musicians,  has  familiarised  mankind  ;  nor  is  transla- 
tion possible  in  the  present  corrupt  state  of  the  text. 
Whether  or  not  there  existed  an  historic  Don  Juan  at 
Plasencia  or  at  Seville  is  doubtful,  for  folklorists  have 
found  the  story  as  far  away  from  Spain  as  Iceland  is ; 
but  it  is  Tirso's  glory  to  have  so  treated  it  that  the 
world  has  accepted  it  as  a  purely  Spanish  conception. 
The  Festin  de  Pierre  (1659)  by  Dorimond,  the  Fils 

1  See  M.  Farinelli's  learned  study,  Don  Giovanni:  Note  critiche  (Torino, 
1896),  pp.  37-39. 


DON  JUAN  313 

Criminel  (1660)  of  De  Villiers,  the  Dom  Juan  (1665)  of 
Moliere,  the  Nouveau  Festin  de  Pierre  (1670)  of  Rosi- 
mond,  and  the  arrangement  of  Thomas  Corneille,  are 
but  pale  reflections  of  the  Spanish  type  which  passes 
onward  from  Shadwell's  Libertine  (1676)  till  it  reaches 
the  hands  of  Byron  and  Zorrilla  and  Barbey  d'Aur6- 
villy  and  Flaubert  (whose  posthumous  sketch  comes 
closer  back  to  the  original).  Of  these  later  artists  not 
one  has  succeeded  in  matching  the  patrician  dignity,  the 
infernal,  iniquitous  valour  of  the  original.  To  have 
created  a  universal  type,  to  have  imposed  a  character 
upon  the  world,  to  have  outlived  all  rivalry,  to  have 
achieved  in  words  what  Mozart  alone  has  expressed 
in  music,  is  to  rank  among  the  great  creators  of  all 
time. 

If  Tirso  excelled  in  sombre  force,  he  was  likewise  a 
master  in  the  lighter  comedy  of  El  Vergonzoso  en  Palacio, 
where  Mireno,  the  Shy  Man  at  Court,  is  rendered  with 
rare  sympathetic  delicacy,  and  in  the  farcical  intrigue 
of  Don  Gil  de  las  Calzas  verdes  (Don  Gil  of  the  Green 
Breeches),  where  the  changes  of  Juana  to  Elvira  or 
to  Don  Gil  are  such  examples  of  subtle,  gay  ingenuity 
as  delight  and  bewilder  the  reader  no  less  than  the 
comic  trio  of  the  Villana  de  Vallecas,  or  the  picture  of 
unctuous  hypocrisy  in  Marta  la  piadosa.  Tirso's  fate  was 
to  be  forgotten,  not  merely  by  the  public,  but  by  the 
very  dramatists  who  used  his  themes ;  and,  as  in  Lope's 
case,  the  neglect  is  partly  due  to  the  rarity  of  his 
editions.  Yet,  even  so,  his  eclipse  is  unaccountable, 
for  his  various  gifts  are  hard  to  match  in  any  litera- 
ture. He  has  not  the  disconcerting  cleverness  of  Lope, 
nor  has  he  Lope's  infinite  variety  of  resource  ;  more- 
over, his  natural  frankness  has  won  him  a  name  for 


314  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

indecency.  Yet  has  he  imagination,  passion,  individual 
vision,  knowledge  of  dramatic  effect.  He  could  create 
character,  and  his  women,  if  less  noble,  are  more  real 
than  Lope's  own  in  their  frank  emotion  and  seductive 
abandonment.  At  whiles  his  diction  tends  to  Gongor- 
ism,  as  when — in  El  Amor  y  la  Amistad — a  personage, 
at  sight  of  a  mountain,  babbles  of  "  the  lofty  daring  of 
the  snow,  the  pyramid  of  diamond "  ;  but  this  is  ex- 
ceptional, and  his  hostility  to  culteranismo  inspired  G6n- 
gora  to  write  more  than  one  stinging  epigram.  Tirso 
had  not  Lope's  matchless  facility,  and,  considering  the 
maturity  of  the  Spanish  genius,  it  is  strange  that  he 
should  have  written  no  play  before  1606  or  1608. 
Moreover,  he  composed  by  fits  and  starts  in  moments 
snatched  from  duty,  and,  beginning  late,  he  ended 
early.  Even  in  these  circumstances  he  could  boast  in 
1621  that  he  had  produced  three  hundred  plays — a 
number  afterwards  raised  to  four  hundred.  Only  some 
eighty  survive  :  in  other  words,  four-fifths  of  his  theatre 
has  vanished,  and  the  loss  is  surely  great  for  those 
who  would  fain  know  every  aspect  of  his  genius.  But 
enough  remains  to  justify  his  high  position,  and  his 
fame,  like  Lope's,  grows  from  day  to  day. 

Of  such  dramatists  as  the  courtly  Antonio  Hurtado 
de  Mendoza  (?  1590-1 644),  and  the  festive  Luis  Belmontey 
Bermudez  (1587-?  1650)  mere  mention  must  suffice  :  the 
former's  Querer  por  sdlo  querer  may  be  read  in  an  excel- 
lent version  made  by  Sir  Richard  Fanshawe  during  his 
imprisonment  "  by  Oliver,  after  the  Battail  of  Worcester." 
Antonio  Mira  de  Amescua  (?  1578-1640),  chaplain  of 
Felipe  IV.,  mingled  the  human  with  the  divine,  was 
praised  by  all  contemporaries  from  Cervantes  onwards, 
had  the  right  lyrical  note,  and,  if  his  plays  were  collected, 


RUIZ  DE  ALARC6N  315 

might  prove  himself  worthy  of  his  dramatic  fame;  as  it 
is,  he  is  best  known  as  a  playwright  from  whom  Calder6n, 
Moreto,  and  Corneille  have  borrowed  themes.  A  more 
original  talent  is  shown  by  JUAN  Ruiz  DE  ALARCON 
(?  1581-1639),  whose  father  was  administrator  of  the 
Tlacho  mines  in  Mexico.  Ruiz  de  Alarcdn  left  Mexico 
for  Spain  in  1600,  and  studied  at  Salamanca  for  five 
years ;  he  returned  to  America  in  1608  in  the  hope  of 
being  elected  to  a  University  chair,  but  the  deformity — 
a  hunched  back — with  which  he  was  taunted  his  life  long 
was  against  him,  and  he  made  for  Spain  in  1611.  He 
entered  the  household  of  the  Marques  de  Salinas,  wrote 
some  laudatory  decimas  for  the  Desengano  de  la  Forluna 
in  1612,  and  next  year  produced  his  first  play,  the 
Seme/ante  de  si  mismo,  founded,  like  Tirso's  Celosa  de  si 
misma,  on  the  Curious  Impertinent.  It  was  no  great 
success,  but  it  made  him  known  and  hated.  He  was 
far  too  ready  to  attack  others,  being  himself  most  vulner- 
able. Cristobal  Suarez  de  Figueroa,  who  had  jeered  at 
Cervantes  for  "  writing  prologues  and  dedications  when 
at  death's  door,"  spoke  for  others  besides  himself  when 
he  lampooned  Alarc6n  as  "an  ape  in  man's  guise,  an 
impudent  hunchback,  a  ludicrous  deformity."  Tirso 
befriended  the  Mexican,  while  Mendoza,  Lope,  Quevedo, 
and  the  rest  scourged  him  mercilessly  ;  and  when  his 
Antecristo  (which  Voltaire  used  in  Mahomet]  was  played, 
a  band  of  rioters  ruined  the  performance  by  squirting 
oil  on  the  spectators  and  firing  squibs  in  the  pit.  Yet 
the  women  always  crowded  the  house  when  his  name 
was  in  the  bill,  and  they  made  his  fortune  by  contriving 
that  his  play,  Siempre  aynda  la  Verdad — probably  written 
in  collaboration  with  Tirso — should  be  given  at  court  in 
1623.  Three  years  later  he  was  named  Member  of 


316  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Council  for  the  Indies.     His  collected  pieces  were  pub- 
lished in  1628  and  1634. 

Ruiz  de  Alarc6n  was  never  popular  in  the  sense  that 
Lope  and  Calder6n  were  popular ;  still,  he  had  his 
successes,  and  no  Spanish  dramatist  is  better  reading. 
Compared  with  his  rivals  he  was  sterile,  for  the  total  of 
his  plays  is  less  than  thirty,  even  if  we  accept  all  the 
doubtful  pieces  ascribed  to  him.  Lope  excels  him  in 
invention,  Tirso  in  force  and  fun,  Calder6n  in  charm  ; 
Ruiz  de  Alarc6n  is  less  intensely  national  than  these, 
and  the  very  individuality — the  extraileza — which  Mont- 
alban  noted  with  perplexity,  makes  him  almost  better 
appreciated  abroad  than  at  home.  Corneille  has  based 
French  tragedy  upon  Guillen  de  Castro's  Mocedades  del 
Cid;  French  comedy  is  scarcely  less  influenced  by  his 
adaptation  of  the  Menteur  from  Ruiz  de  Alarcon's  Verdad 
Sospechosa  (Truth  Suspected).  Garcia  has  lied  all  his  life, 
lies  to  his  father,  his  friends,  his  betrothed,  lies  to  him- 
self, and  defeats  his  own  purpose  by  his  ingenuity.  He 
would  speak  the  truth  if  he  could,  but  he  has  no  talent 
that  way.  Why  trouble  with  truth  when  lying  comes 
easier  ?  His  father,  Beltrdn,  perceives  that  the  miser 
enjoys  money,  that  murder  slakes  vengeance,  that  the 
drunkard  grows  glorious  with  wine  ;  but  his  son's  failing 
is  beyond  him.  The  noble  Philistine  has  not  the  artist's 
soul,  and  cannot  understand  why  Garcfa  should  lie  for 
lying's  sake,  against  his  own  interest.  Throughout  the 
play  Ruiz  de  Alarc6n  is  never  once  at  fault,  and  the  gay 
ingenuity  with  which  he  enforces  the  old  moral,  that 
honesty  is  the  best  policy,  is  equalled  by  his  masterly 
creation  of  character.  Ethics  are  his  preoccupation ; 
yet,  though  almost  all  his  plays  seek  to  enforce  a  lesson, 
he  nowhere  descends  to  pulpiteering  or  merges  the  dra- 


ALARCCN'S  THEATRE  317 

matist  in  the  teacher.  While  in  Las  Paredes  Oyen  (Walls 
have  Ears)  and  in  El  Examen  de  Maridos  (Husbands 
Proved)  the  triumph  of  the  Verdad  Sospechosa  is  re- 
peated, the  more  national  play  is  admirably  exampled 
in  El  Tejedor  de  Segovia  (The  Weaver  of  Segovia)  and 
Ganar  Amigos  (How  to  Win  Friends). 

There  are  greater  Spanish  playwrights  than  Ruiz  de 
Alarcon :  there  is  none  whose  work  is  of  such  even 
excellence.  In  so  early  a  piece  as  the  Cuevade  Salamanca, 
though  there  is  manifest  technical  inexperience,  the  mere 
writing  is  almost  as  good  as  in  La  Verdad  Sospechosa. 
The  very  infertility  at  which  contemporaries  mocked  is 
balanced  by  equality  of  execution.  Lope  and  Calder6n 
have  written  better  pieces,  and  many  worse :  no  line  that 
Ruiz  de  Alarcon  published  is  unworthy  of  him.  While  his 
contemporaries  were  content  to  improvise  at  ease,  he  sat 
aloof,  never  joining  in  the  race  for  money  and  applause, 
but  filing  with  a  scrupulous  conscience  to  such  effect 
that  all  his  work  endures.  His  chief  titles  to  fame  are 
his  power  of  creating  character  and  his  high  ethical  aim. 
But  he  has  other  merits  scarcely  less  rare :  his  versifica- 
tion is  of  extreme  finish,  and  his  spirited  dialogue,  free 
from  any  tinge  of  Gongorism,  is  a  triumph  of  fine  idiom 
over  perverse  influences  which  led  men  of  greater  natural 
endowment  astray.  His  taste,  indeed,  is  almost  unerring, 
and  it  goes  to  form  that  sober  dignity,  that  individual 
tone,  that  uncommon  counterpoise  of  faculties  which 
place  him  below — and  a  little  apart  from — the  two  or 
three  best  Spanish  dramatists. 

If  there  be  an  exotic  element  in  the  quality  of  Ruiz  de 
Alarcon's  distinction  as  in  his  frugal  dramatic  method, 
the  espanolismo  of  the  land  is  incarnate  in  the  genius  of 
PEDRO  CALDERON  DE  LA  BARCA  HENAO  DE  LA  BARREDA 


318  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Y  RiAfJo  (1600-1681),  the  most  representative  Spaniard 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  His  father  was  Secretary  to 
the  Treasury,  and,  on  this  side,  CaldenSn  was  ahighlander, 
like  Santillana,  Lope,  and  Quevedo  ;  he  inherited  a  strain 
of  Flemish  blood  through  his  mother,  who  claimed  de- 
scent from  the  De  Mons  of  Hainault.  He  was  educated 
at  the  Jesuit  Colegio  Imperial  in  Madrid,  and  fond  bio- 
graphers declare  that  he  studied  civil  and  canon  law  at 
Salamanca;  this  is  mere  assertion,  unsupported  by  any 
proof.  Though  he  is  said  to  have  written  a  play,  El 
Carro  del  Cielo,  at  thirteen,  he  was  not  very  precocious 
for  a  Spaniard,  his  first  authentic  appearances  being 
made  at  the  Feast  of  St.  Isidore  in  1620  and  1622.  On 
the  latter  occasion  he  won  the  third  prize,  and  was 
praised  by  the  good-natured  Lope  as  one  "  who  in  his 
tender  years  earns  the  laurels  which  time  commonly 
awards  to  grey  hairs."  His  Boswell,  Vera  Tasis,  reports 
that  he  served  in  Milan  and  Flanders  from  1625  to 
1635  ;  but  there  must  be  an  error  of  date,  for  in  1629 
he  is  found  at  Madrid  drawing  his  sword  upon  the 
actor,  Pedro  de  Villegas,  who  had  treacherously  stabbed 
Calderon's  brother,  and  who  fled  for  sanctuary  to  the 
Trinitarian  Church.  The  Gongorist  preacher,  Paravi- 
cino,  referred  to  the  matter  in  public ;  Calder6n  replied 
by  scoffing  at  "sermons  of  Barbary,"  and  was  sent  to 
gaol  for  insulting  the  cloth.  Pellicer  signals  another 
outburst  in  1640,  when  the  dramatist  whipped  out  his 
sword  at  rehearsal  and  came  off  second  best.  These  are 
pleasing  incidents  in  a  career  of  sombre  respectability, 
though  one  half  fears  that  the  second  is  fiction.  In  1637 
Calder6n  was  promoted  to  the  Order  of  Santiago,  and 
in  1640  he  served  with  his  brother  knights  against  the 
Catalan  rebels,  hastily  finishing  his  Certamen  de  Amor 


CALDERON  319 

y  Celos  (Strife  of  Love  and  Jealousy)  so  as  to  share  in 
the  campaign.  He  was  sent  to  Madrid  on  some  mili- 
tary mission  in  1641  ;  received  from  the  artillery  fund 
a  monthly  pension  of  thirty  gold  crowns ;  was  ordained 
priest  in  1651  ;  was  made  chaplain  of  the  New  Kings  at 
Toledo  in  1653  ;  became  honorary  chaplain  to  Felipe  IV. 
in  1663,  when  he  joined  the  Congregation  of  St.  Peter, 
which  elected  him  its  Superior  in  1666.  On  taking  orders, 
Calderon's  intention  was  to  forsake  the  secular  stage,  but 
he  yielded  to  the  King's  command,  and,  so  late  as  1680, 
celebrated  Carlos  II.'s  wedding  with  Marie  Louise  de  Bour- 
bon. "  He  died  singing,  as  they  say  of  the  swan,"  wrote 
Soli's  to  Alonso  Carnero.  When  death  took  him  he  was 
busied  with  an  auto,  which  was  finished  by  Melchor  de 
Le6n — a  fit  ending  to  a  happy,  blameless  life. 

Calder6n's  prose  writings  are  small  in  volume  and  in 
importance.  The  description  (written  under  the  name 
of  his  colleague,  Lorenzo  Ramirez  de  Prado)  of  the  entry 
into  Madrid  of  Felipe  IV.'s  second  queen  is  an  official 
performance.  More  interest  attaches  to  a  treatise  on 
the  dignity  of  painting,  first  printed  in  the  fourth  volume 
of  Francisco  Mariano  Nifo's  Cajon  de  Sastre  literato 
(1781): — "Painting,"  says  Calder6n,  "is  the  art  of  arts, 
dominating  all  others  and  using  them  as  handmaids." 
He  had  an  admirable  gift  of  appreciation,  and  he 
proves  it  by  rescuing  from  the  oblivion  of  the  Cancionero 
General  such  a  ballad  as  Escriba's,  which  he  quotes  in 
Manos  Blancos  no  ofenden,  and  again  in  El  Mayor  Mon- 
struo  de  los  Celos.  Churton's  version  of  the  song  is  not 
unhappy : — 

"  Come,  death,  ere  step  or  sound  I  hear, 
Unknown  the  hour,  unfett  the  pain; 
Lest  the  "wild  joy  to  feel  thee  near, 
Should  thrill  me  back  to  life  again. 


320  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Come,  sudden  as  the  lightning-ray, 
When  skies  are  calm  and  air  is  still; 

E'en  from  the  silence  of  its  way, 
More  sure  to  strike  where'er  it  will. 

Such  let  thy  secret  coming  be. 

Lest  -warning  make  thy  summons  vain, 

And  joy  to  find  myself  with  thee 
Call  back  life's  ebbing  tide  again" 

A  great  lyric  poet,  his  lyrics  are  mostly  included  in  his 
plays.  One  ballad,  supposed  to  be  a  description  of 
himself,  written  at  a  lady's  request,  is  often  quoted,  and 
has  been  well  Englished  by  Mr.  Norman  MacColl ;  it  is, 
however,  unauthentic,  being  due  to  a  Sevillan  contem- 
porary, Carlos  Cepeda  y  Guzman.1  The  earliest  play 
printed  with  Calder6n's  name  is  El  Astrologo  fingido 
(1632),  and  from  1633  onwards  collected  editions  of  his 
works  were  published  ;  but  he  had  no  personal  concern 
in  these  issues,  which  so  presented  him  that,  as  he  pro- 
tested, he  could  not  recognise  himself.  Though  he  printed 
a  volume  of  autos  in  1676,  he  was  so  indifferent  as  to  the 
fate  of  his  secular  plays  that  he  never  troubled  to  collect 
them.  Luckily,  in  1680  he  drew  up  a  list  of  his  pieces 
for  the  Duque  de  Veragua,  the  descendant  of  Columbus, 
and  upon  this  foundation  Vera  Tasis  constructed  a 
posthumous  edition  in  nine  volumes.  Roughly  speak- 
ing, we  possess  one  hundred  and  twenty  formal  plays, 
and  some  seventy  autos,  with  a  few  entremeses  of  no  great 
account. 

Calderon  has  been  fortunate  in  death  as  in  life  ;  for 
though  his  vogue  never  quite  equalled  that  of  his  great 
predecessor,  Lope,  it  proved  far  more  enduring.  From 

1  Cp.  Mr.  Norman  MacColl's  Select  Plays  of  Calderon  (London,  1888), 
pp.  xxvi.-xxx.,  and  Gallardo's  Ensayo  de  una  Biblioteca  Espanola  (Madrid, 
1866),  vol.  ii.  col.  367,  368. 


CALDER6N  AND  SHELLEY  321 

Lope's  death  to  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
Calder6n  was  chief  of  the  Spanish  stage ;  and,  though 
he  underwent  a  temporary  eclipse  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  his  sovereignty  was  restored  in  the  nineteenth 
by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  German  Romantics.  He  has 
suffered  more  than  most  from  the  indiscretion  of  ad- 
mirers. When  Sismondi  pronounced  him  simply  a 
clever  playwright,  "  the  poet  of  the  Inquisition,"  he 
was  no  further  from  the  truth  than  the  extravagant 
Friedrich  Schlegel,  who  proclaimed  that  "in  this  great 
and  divine  master  the  enigma  of  life  is  not  merely 
expressed,  but  solved "  :  thus  placing  him  above 
Shakespeare,  who  (so  raved  the  German)  only  stated 
life's  riddle  without  attempting  a  solution.  James  the 
First  once  said  to  the  ambassador  whom  Ben  Jonson 
called  "  Old  ^Esop  Gondomar  : — "  I  know  not  how,  but 
it  seems  to  be  the  trade  of  a  Spaniard  to  talk  rodo- 
montade." It  was  no  less  the  trade  of  the  German 
Romantic,  who  mistook  lyrism  for  scenic  presentation. 
Nor  were  the  Germans  alone  in  their  enthusiasm. 
Shelley  met  with  Calderon's  ideal  dramas,  read  them 
"with  inexpressible  wonder  and  delight,"  and  was 
tempted  "to  throw  over  their  perfect  and  glowing 
forms  the  grey  veil  of  my  own  words."  The  famous 
speech  of  the  Spirit  replying,  in  the  Mdgico  Prodigioso, 
to  Cyprian's  question,  "  Who  art  thou,  and  whence 
comest  thou?"  has  become  familiar  to  every  reader  of 
English  literature : — 

"  Since  thou  desires  t,  I  will  then  unveil 
Myself  to  thee  ;— -for  in  myself  I  am 
A  world  of  happiness  and  misery; 
This  I  have  lost,  and  that  I  must  lament 
For  ever-     In  my  attributes  I  stood 


322  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

So  high  and  so  heroically  great, 

In  lineage  so  supreme,  and  with  a  genius 

Which  penetrated  with  a  glance  the  world 

Beneath  my  feet,  that  was  by  my  high  merit. 

A  King — whom  I  may  call  the  King  of  kings, 

Because  all  others  tremble  in  their  pride 

Before  the  terrors  of  his  countenance — 

In  his  high  palace  roofed  with  brightest  gems 

Of  living  light — call  them  the  stars  of  heaven — 

Named  me  his  counsellor.     But  the  high  praise 

Stung  me  with  pride  and  envy,  and  I  rose 

In  mighty  competition,  to  ascend 

His  seat,  and  place  my  foot  triumphantly 

Upon  his  subject  thrones.     Chastised,  I  know 

The  depth  to  which  ambition  falls  :  too  mad 

Was  the  attempt,  and  yet  more  mad  were  now 

Repentance  of  the  irrevocable  deed  ; 

Therefore  I  close  this  ruin  with  the  glory 

Of  not  to  be  subdued,  before  the  shame 

Of  reconciling  me  with  him  who  reigns 

By  coward  cession.     Nor  was  I  alone, 

Nor  am  I  now,  nor  shall  I  be  alone; 

And  there  was  hope,  and  there  may  still  be  hope, 

For  many  suffrages  among  his  vassals 

Hailed  me  their  lord  and  king,  and  many  still 

Are  mine,  and  many  more  shall  be. 

Thus  vanquished,  though  in  fact  victorious, 

I  left  his  seat  of  empire" 


This  "  grey  veil "  serves  but  to  heighten  the  noble 
poetic  quality  which  turned  a  cooler  head  than  Shelley's. 
Goethe  was  moved  to  tears,  and,  though  towards  the  end 
he  perceived  the  mischief  wrought  in  Germany  by  the 
uncritical  idolatry  of  Calder6n,  he  never  ceased  to  ad- 
mire the  only  Spanish  poet  that  he  really  knew.  And  in 
our  time  men  like  Schack  and  Schmidt  have  dedicated 
their  lives  to  the  propagation  of  the  Calderonian  gospel. 
Some  part  of  the  poet's  fame  is  due  to  his  translators, 


CALDERON'S    QUALITIES  323 

some  also  to  the  fact  that  for  a  long  time  there  was 
no  rival  in  the  field.  To  the  rest  of  Europe  he  has  stood 
for  Spain.  Readers  could  not  divine  (and  in  default  of 
editions  they  could  not  contrive  to  learn)  that  Calder6n, 
great  as  he  is,  comes  far  short  of  Lope's  freshness,  force, 
and  invention,  far  short  of  Tirso's  creative  power  and 
impressive  conception.  But  Spaniards  know  better  than 
to  give  him  the  highest  place  among  their  dramatic  gods. 
He  is  too  brilliant  to  be  set  aside  as  a  mere  follower  of 
Lope's,  for  he  rises  to  heights  of  poetry  which  Lope  never 
reached ;  yet  it  is  simple  history  that  he  did  but  develop 
the  seed  which  Lope  planted.  He  made  no  attempt — 
and  there  he  showed  good  judgment — to  reform  the 
Spanish  drama ;  he  was  content  to  work  upon  the  old 
ways,  borrowing  hints  from  his  predecessors,  and,  in 
a  lazy  mood,  incorporating  entire  scenes.  If  we  are  to 
believe  Viguier  and  Philarete  Chasles,  he  went  so  far 
as  to  annex  Corneille's  Heraclius  (1647),  and  publish  it  in 
1664  as  En  esta  vida  todo  es  verdad  y  todo  es  mentira  (In 
this  Life  All's  True  and  All's  False) ;  but,  as  he  knew  no 
French,  the  chances  are  that  both  plays  derive  from  a 
common  source — Mira  de  Amescua's  Rueda  de  lafortuna 
(1614).  In  attempts  to  create  character  he  almost  always 
fails,  and  when  he  succeeds — as  in  El  Alcalde  de  Zala- 
mea — he  succeeds  by  brilliantly  retouching  Lope's  first 
sketch.  Goethe  hit  Calder6n's  weak  spot  with  the  re- 
mark that  his  characters  are  as  alike  as  bullets  or  leaden 
soldiers  cast  in  the  same  mould ;  and  the  constant  lyrical 
interruptions  go  to  show  that  he  knew  his  own  strength. 
Others  might  match  and  overcome  him  as  a  playwright : 
there  was  none  to  approach  him  in  such  magnificent 
lyrism  as  he  allots  to  Justina  in  El  Mdgico  Prodigioso — to 
be  quoted  here  in  FitzGerald's  rendering : — 


324  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

"  Who  that  in  his  hour  of  glory 

Walks  the  kingdom  of  the  rose, 
And  misapprehends  the  story 

Which  through  all  the  garden  blows; 
Which  the  southern  air  who  brings 
It  touches,  and  the  leafy  strings 

Lightly  to  the  touch  respond; 
And  nightingale  to  nightingale 

Answering  a  bough  beyond. .  .  . 

Lo!  the  golden  Girasolt, 

That  to  hint  by  whom  she  burns, 
Over  heaven  slowly,  slowly, 

As  he  travels,  ever  turns, 
And  beneath  the  wat*ry  main 
When  he  sinks,  would  follow  fain, 

Follow  fain  from  west  to  east, 
And  then  from  east  to  west  again. .  . . 

So  for  her  who  having  lighted 

In  another  heart  the  fire, 
Then  shall  leave  it  unrequited 

In  its  ashes  to  expire  : 
After  her  that  sacrifice 
Through  the  garden  burns  and  cries, 
In  the  sultry,  breathing  air, 
In  the  flowers  that  turn  and  stare.  .  .  " 

Such  songs  as  these  are,  perhaps,  better  to  read  than  to 
hear,  and  Calder6n  is  careful  to  supply  a  more  popular 
interest.  This  he  finds  in  three  sentiments  which  are 
still  most  characteristic  of  the  Spanish  temperament : 
personal  loyalty  to  the  King,  absolute  devotion  to  the 
Church,  and  the  "point  of  honour."  Through  good 
report  and  evil,  Spain  has  held  by  the  three  principles 
which  have  made  and  undone  her.  These  three  sources 
of  inspiration  find  their  highest  expression  in  the  theatre 
of  Calder6n.  A  favourite  with  Felipe  IV.,  a  courtly 
poet,  if  ever  one  there  were,  he  becomes  the  mouth- 
piece of  a  nation  when  he  deifies  the  King  in  the 


THE  POINT  OF  HONOUR  325 

Principe  Constante,  in  La  Banda  y  la  Flor  (The  Scarf 
and  the  Flower),  in  Gudrdate  de  la  Agua  mansa  (Beware 
of  Still  Water),  and  in  a  score  of  plays.  Ticknor 
speaks  of  "  CaldenSn's  flattery  of  the  great "  :  he  over- 
looks the  social  condition  implied  in  the  title  of  Rojas 
Zorrilla's  famous  play,  Del  Rey  abajo  Ninguno  (Nobody, 
under  the  King).  A  titular  aristocracy,  shorn  of  all 
power,  counted  for  less  than  a  foreigner  can  conceive 
in  a  land  where  half  the  population  was  noble,  and 
the  reverence  which  was  centred  on  the  person  of  the 
Lord's  anointed  evolved  into  a  profound  devotion,  a 
fantastic  passion  as  exaggerated  as  anything  in  Amadis. 
A  Church  which  had  inspired  the  seven-hundred-years' 
battle  against  the  Moors,  which  had  produced  miracles 
of  holiness  and  of  genius  like  Santa  Teresa  and  San 
Juan  de  la  Cruz,  which  had  stemmed  the  flood  of  the 
Reformation  and  rolled  it  back  from  the  Pyrenees,  was 
regarded  as  the  one  moral  authority,  the  sole  possible 
form  of  religion,  and  as  the  symbol  of  Latin  unity  under 
Spain's  headship. 

The  "point  of  honour" — the  vengeance  wrought  by 
husbands,  fathers,  and  brothers  in  the  cases  of  women 
found  in  dubious  circumstances — is  harder  to  explain, 
or,  at  least,  to  justify ;  yet  even  this  was  a  perverted 
outcome  of  chivalresque  ideals,  very  acceptable  to  men 
who  esteemed  life  more  cheaply  than  their  neighbours. 
Calder6n's  treatment  of  such  a  situation  may  be  followed 
in  FitzGerald's  version  of  El  Pintor  de  su  Deshonra.  The 
husband,  who  has  slain  his  wife  and  her  lover,  confronts 
her  father  and  friends  : — 

Prince.  "  Whoever  dares 

Molest  him,  answers  it  to  me.     Open  the  door. 

But  what  is  this  f  [Belardo  unlocks  the  door. 


326  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Juan  (coming  out).  A  picture 

Done  by  the  Painter  of  his  own  Dishonour, 

In  blood. 

I  am  Don  Juan  Roca.     Such  revenge 

As  each  would  have  of  me  now  let  him  take 

As  far  as  our  life  holds — Don  Pedro,  who 

Gave  me  that  lovely  creature  for  a  bride, 

And  1  return  him  a  bloody  corpse; 

Don  Luis,  who  beholds  his  bosom 's  son 

Slain  by  his  bosom  friend;  and  you,  my  lord, 

Who,  for  your  favours,  might  expect  apiece 

In  some  far  other  style  than  this. 

Deal  with  me  as  you  list;  'twill  be  a  mercy 

To  swell  this  complement  of  death  with  mine; 

For  all  I  had  to  do  is  done,  and  life 

Is  worse  than  nothing  now. 

Prince.  Get  you  to  horse 

And  leave  the  wind  behind  you. 

Luis.  Nay,  my  lord; 

Whom  should  he  fly  from  ?    Not  from  me  at  least, 
Who  lotfd  his  honour  as  my  own,  and  would 
Myself  have  helped  him  in  a  just  revenge 
Et?n  on  an  only  son. 

Pedro.  I  cannot  speak, 

But  I  bow  down  these  miserable  grey  hairs 
To  other  arbitrament  than  the  sword, 
Eitn  to  your  Highness*  justice. 

Prince.  Be  it  so. 

Meanwhile 

Juan.  Meanwhile,  my  lord,  let  me  depart '/ 

Free,  if  you  will,  or  not.    But  let  me  go, 
Nor  wound  these  fathers  with  the  sight  of  me, 
Who  has  cut  off  the  blossom  of  their  age — 
Yea,  and  his  own,  more  miserable  than  them  all. 
They  know  me :  that  I  am  a  gentleman, 
Not  cruel,  nor  without  what  seenfd  due  cause 
Put  on  this  bloody  business  of  my  honour; 
Which  having  done,  I  will  be  answerable 
Here  and  elsewhere,  to  all  for  all. 

Pnnce.  Depart 

In  peace. 
Juan.  In  peace!    Come,  Leonelo? 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  AUTOS    327 

Similar  motives  are  used  by  Lope  de  Vega  and  Tirso 
de  Molina,  both  priests  and  grey-beards ;  but  the  effect 
is  more  emphatic  in  Calder6n,  and  so  early  as  1683  his 
"immorality"  was  severely  censured  on  the  occasion 
of  Manuel  de  Guerra  y  Ribera's  eulogistic  aprobacion. 
In  this  matter,  as  in  most  others,  he  is  satisfied  to 
follow  and  to  exaggerate  an  existing  convention.  His 
heroes  are  untouched  by  Othello's  sublime  jealousy : 
they  kill  their  victims  in  cold  blood  as  something  due 
to  the  self-respect  of  gentlemen  placed  in  an  absurd 
position.  He  rehandles  the  theme  in  A  Secreto  Agravio 
Secreta  Venganza  and  in  El  Medico  de  su  Honra  ;  but  the 
right  emotion  is  rarely  felt  by  the  reader,  since  Calderon 
himself  is  seldom  fired  by  real  passion,  and  writes  his 
scene  as  a  splendid  exercise  in  literature. 

His  genius  is  most  visible  in  his  autos  sacramentales,  a 
dramatic  form  peculiar  to  Spain.  The  word  auto  is  first 
applied  to  any  and  every  play  ;  then,  the  meaning  be- 
coming narrower,  an  auto  is  a  religious  play,  resembling 
the  mediaeval  Mysteries  (Gil  Vicente's  Auto  de  San 
Martinho  is  probably  the  earliest  piece  of  this  type). 
Finally,  a  far  more  special  sense  is  developed,  and  an 
auto  sacramental  comes  to  mean  a  dramatised  exposition 
of  the  Mystery  of  the  Blessed  Eucharist,  to  be  played  in 
the  open  on  Corpus  Christi  Day.  The  Dutch  traveller, 
Frans  van  Aarssens  van  Sommelsdijk,  has  left  an  account 
of  the  spectacle  as  he  saw  it  when  Calder6n  was  in  his 
prime.  Borne  in  procession  through  the  city,  the  Host 
was  followed  by  sovereigns,  courtiers,  and  the  multitude, 
with  artificial  giants  and  pasteboard  monsters — tarascas 
— at  their  head.  Fifers,  bandsmen,  dancers  of  decorous 
measures  accompanied  the  train  to  the  cathedral.  In 
the  afternoon  the  assembly  met  in  the  public  square, 


328 


SPANISH  LITERATURE 


and  the  auto  was  played  before  the  King,  who  sat  beneath 
a  canopy,  the  richer  public,  which  lined  the  balconies,  and 
the  general,  which  rilled  the  road.  Even  for  an  educated 
Protestant  nothing  is  easier  than  to  confound  an  auto 
sacramental  with  a  comedia  devota  or  a  comedia  de  santos : 
thus  Bouterwek,  in  his  History,  and  Longfellow,  in  his 
Outre- Her,  have  mistaken  the  Devocidn  de  la  Cruz  for  an 
auto.  The  distinction  is  radical.  The  true  auto  has  no 
secondary  interest,  has  no  mundane  personages :  its  one 
subject  is  the  Eucharistic  Mystery  exposed  by  allegorical 
characters.  Denis  Florence  M'Carthy's  version  of  Los 
Encantos  de  la  Culpa  (The  Sorceries  of  Sin)  enables  English 
readers  to  judge  the  genre  for  themselves : — 

Sin.  "...  Smell,  come  here,  and  with  thy  sense 

Test  this  bread,  this  substance, — tell  me 

Is  it  bread  or  flesh  ? 
The  Smell.  Its  smell 

Is  the  smell  of  bread. 
Sin.  Taste,  enter; 

Try  it  thou. 
The  Taste.  Its  taste 

Is  plainly  that  of  bread. 
Sin,  Touch,  come;  -why  tremble  f 

Say  whafs  this  thou  touchest. 

The  Touch  Bread. 

Sin.  Sight,  declare  what  thou  discernest 

In  this  object. 

The  Sight.  Bread  alone. 

Sin.  Hearing,  thou,  too,  break  in  pieces 

This  material,  'which,  as  flesh, 

Faith  proclaims,  and  penance  preacheth; 

Let  the  fraction  by  its  noise 

Of  their  error  undeceive  them  : 

Say,  is  it  so  ? 
The  Hearing.  Ungrateful  Sin, 

Though  the  noise  in  truth  resembles 

That  of  bread  when  broken,  yet 


CALDERtfN'S  AUTOS  329 

Faith  and  Penance  teach  us  better. 
It  is  fleshy  and  what  they  call  it 
I  believe  :  that  Faith  asserteth 
Aught,  is  proof  enough  thereof. 

The  Understanding.    This  one  reason  brings  contentment 
Unto  me. 

Penance.  O  man,  why  linger, 

Now  that  Hearing  hath  firm  fetter*  d 
To  the  Faith  thy  Understanding? 
QuickC  regain  the  saving  vessel 
Of  the  sovereign  Church,  and  leave 
Sin's  so  highly  sweet  excesses. 
Thou,  Ulysses,  Circe's  slave, 
Fly  this  false  and" fleeting  revel, 
Since,  how  great  her  power  may  de, 
Greater  is  the  power  of  Heaven^ 
And  the  true  Jove's  mightier  magic 
Will  thy  virtuous  purpose  strengthen. 

The  Man.  Yes,  thou'rt  right,  O  Understanding; 

Lead  in  safety  hence  my  senses. 

All.  Let  us  to  our  ship;  for  here 

All  is  shadowy  and  unsettled? 

As  a  writer  of  autos  Calder6n  is  supreme.  Lope,  who 
outshines  him  at  so  many  points,  is  far  less  dexterous 
than  his  successor  when  he  attempts  the  sacramental 
play.  This  kind  of  drama  would  almost  seem  created 
for  the  greater  glory  of  Calderon.  The  personages 
of  his  worldly  plays,  and  even  of  his  comedias  devotas, 
tend  to  become  personifications  of  revenge,  love,  pride, 
charity,  and  the  rest.  His  set  pieces  are  disfigured  by 
want  of  humour  and  by  over-refinement — faults  which 
turn  to  virtues  in  the  autos,  where  abstractions  are 
wedded  to  the  noblest  poetry,  where  the  Beyond  is 
brought  down  to  earth,  and  where  doctrinal  subtleties 
are  embellished  with  miraculous  ingenuity.  To  assert 
that  Calderon  is  incomparably  great  in  the  autos  is  to 


330  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

imply  some  censure  of  his  art  in  his  secular  dramas. 
The  monotony  and  artifice  of  his  sacramental  plays 
might  be  thought  inherent  to  the  species,  were  not 
these  two  notes  characteristic  of  his  whole  theatre.  Nor 
is  it  an  explanation  to  say  that  much  writing  of  autos 
had  affected  his  general  methods  ;  for  not  merely  are 
the  secular  plays  more  numerous — they  are  also  mostly 
earlier  than  the  autos,  whose  real  defects  are  a  lack  of 
dramatic  interest,  an  appeal  to  a  taste  so  local  and  so 
temporary  that  they  are  now  as  extinct  in  Spain  as  are 
masques  in  England.  Still  the  passing  fashions  xvhich 
produced  Comus  in  the  north,  and  the  Encantos  de  la 
Culpa  or  the  Cena  de  Baltasar  in  the  south,  are  justified 
to  all  lovers  of  great  poetry.  The  autos  lingered  on  the 
stage  till  1765,  but  their  genuine  inspiration  ended  with 
Calder6n,  who,  in  all  but  a  literal  sense,  may  be  held  for 
their  creator. 

Lope  de  Vega  is  the  greatest  of  Spanish  dramatists ; 
Calder6n  is  amongst  those  who  most  nearly  approach 
him.  Lope  incarnates  the  genius  of  a  nation  ;  Calderon 
expresses  the  genius  of  an  age.  He  is  a  Spaniard  t;> 
the  marrow,  but  a  Spaniard  of  the  seventeenth  century 
— a  courtier  with  a  turn  for  culteranisnw,  averse  from 
the  picaresque  contrasts  which  lend  variety  to  Lope's 
scene  and  to  Tirso's.  His  interpretation  of  existence  is 
so  idealised  that  his  stage  becomes  in  some  sort  the 
apotheosis  of  his  century.  His  characters  are  not  so 
much  men  and  women,  as  allegorical  types  of  men 
and  women  as  Calder6n  conceived  them.  It  is  not 
real  life  that  he  reveals,  for  he  regarded  realism  as 
ignoble  and  unclean  :  he  offers  in  its  place  a  brilliant 
pageant  of  abstract  emotions.  He  is  not  a  universal 
dramatist :  he  ranks  with  the  greatest  writers  for  the 


THE  ALCALDE  DE  ZALAMEA      331 

Spanish  stage,  inasmuch  as  he  is  the  greatest  poet  using 
the  dramatic  form.  And,  leaving  aside  his  anachronisms 
and  jumblings  of  mythology,  he  is  a  scrupulous  artist, 
careful  of  his  literary  form  and  of  his  construction. 
The  finished  execution  of  his  best  passages  is  so  irre- 
sistible that  FitzGerald  declared  Isabel's  characteristic 
speech  in  the  Alcalde  de  Zalamea  to  be  "  worthy  of  the 
Greek  Antigone  "  : — "  Oh,  never,  never  might  the  light 
of  day  arise  and  show  me  to  myself  in  my  shame  !  O 
fleeting  morning  star,  mightest  thou  never  yield  to  the 
dawn  that  even  now  presses  on  thine  azure  skirts  !  And 
thou,  great  Orb  of  all,  do  thou  stay  down  in  the  cold 
ocean  foam  ;  let  Night  for  once  advance  her  trembling 
empire  into  thine  !  For  once  assert  thy  voluntary  power 
to  hear  and  pity  human  misery  and  prayer,  nor  hasten 
up  to  proclaim  the  vilest  deed  that  Heaven,  in  revenge 
on  man,  has  written  on  his  guilty  annals.  Alas !  even 
as  I  speak,  thou  liftest  thy  bright,  inexorable  face  above 
the  hills."  Contrast  with  this  impassioned  lament  (a 
little  toned  down  in  FitzGerald's  version)  the  aphoristic 
wisdom  of  Pedro  Crespo's  counsel  to  his  son  in  the 
same  play  : — "  Thou  com'st  of  honourable  if  of  humble 
stock ;  bear  both  in  mind,  so  as  neither  to  be  daunted 
from  trying  to  rise,  nor  puffed  up  so  as  to  be  sure 
to  fall.  How  many  have  done  away  the  memory  of  a 
defect  by  carrying  themselves  modestly,  while  others, 
again,  have  gotten  a  blemish  only  by  being  too  proud 
of  being  born  without  one.  There  is  a  just  humility 
that  will  maintain  thine  own  dignity,  and  yet  make  thee 
insensible  to  many  a  rub  that  galls  the  proud  spirit. 
Be  courteous  in  thy  manner,  and  liberal  of  thy  purse  ; 
for  'tis  the  hand  to  the  bonnet,  and  in  the  pocket,  that 
makes  friends  in  this  world,  of  which  to  gain  one  good, 


332  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

all  the  gold  the  sun  breeds  in  India,  or  the  universal 
sea  sucks  down,  were  a  cheap  purchase.  Speak  no  evil 
of  women  ;  I  tell  thee  the  meanest  of  them  deserves  our 
respect ;  for  of  women  do  we  not  all  come  ?  Quarrel 
with  no  one  but  with  good  cause.  ...  I  trust  in  God 
to  live  to  see  thee  home  again  with  honour  and 
advancement  on  thy  back." 

Had  Calder6n  always  maintained  this  level,  he  would 
be  classed  with  the  first  masters  of  all  ages  and  all 
countries.  His  blood,  his  faith,  his  environment  were 
limitations  which  prevented  his  becoming  a  world-poet; 
his  majesty,  his  devout  lyrism,  his  decorative  fantasy 
suffice  to  place  him  in  the  foremost  file  of  national 
poets.  But  he  was  not  so  national  that  foreign 
adaptors  left  him  untouched  :  thus  D'Ouville  annexed 
the  Dama  Duende  under  the  title  of  L Esprit  follet, 
which  reappears  as  Killigrew's  Parson's  Wedding ;  thus 
Dryden's  Evening's  Love  is  Calder6n  done  from  Cor- 
neille's  French  ;  thus  Wycherley's  Gentleman  Dancing 
Master  derives  from  El  Maestro  de  danzar.  Yet,  though 
Calderdn's  plots  may  be  conveyed,  his  substance  cannot 
be  denationalised,  being,  as  he  is,  the  sublimest  Catholic 
poet,  as  Catholicism  and  poetry  were  understood  by  the 
Spaniards  of  the  seventeenth  century  :  a  local  genius  of 
intensely  local  savour,  exercising  his  dramatic  in  local 
forms. 

Archbishop  Trench  has  suggested  that  in  the  three 
great  theatres  of  the  world  the  best  period  covers  h'ttle 
more  than  a  century,  and  he  proves  his  thesis  by  a 
reference  to  dates.  ^Eschylus  was  born  B.C.  525,  and 
Euripides  died  B.C.  406  :  Marlowe  was  born  in  1564, 
and  Shirley  died  in  1666  :  Lope  was  born  in  1562,  and 
Calder6n  died  in  1681.  With  Calder6n  the  heroic  age 


ROJAS  ZORRILLA  333 

of  the  Spanish  theatre  reached  a  splendid  close.  He 
chanced  to  outlive  his  Toledan  contemporary,  FRANCISCO  _ 
DE  RQJAS  ZORRILLA  (1607-?  1661),  from  whose  Traicion  ff" 
busca  el  Castigo  Le  Sage  has  arranged  his  Trattre  punt, 
and  Vanbrugh  his  False  Friend.  A  courtly  poet,  and 
a  Commander  of  the  Order  of  Santiago,  Rojas  Zorrilla 
collaborated  with  fashionable  writers  like  Velez  de 
Guevara,  Mira  de  Amescua,  and  Calder6n,  of  whom  he 
is  accounted  a  disciple,  though  his  one  great  tragedy  has 
real  individual  power.  His  two  volumes  of  plays  (1640, 
1645)  reveal  him  as  a  most  ingenious  dramatist,  who 
carries  the  "  point  of  honour  "  further  than  Calder6n  in 
his  best  known  play,  Del  Rey  abajo  ninguno,  a  charac- 
teristically Spanish  piece.  Garcia  de  Castanar,  appa- 
rently a  peasant  living  near  Toledo,  subscribes  so 
generously  to  the  funds  for  the  expedition  to  Algeciras 
that  King  Alfonso  XI.  resolves  to  visit  him  in  disguise. 
Garcia  gets  wind  of  this,  and  receives  his  guests  honour- 
ably, mistaking  Mendo  for  Alfonso.  Mendo  conceives 
a  passion  for  Blanca,  Garcfa's  wife,  and  is  discovered  by 
the  husband  at  Blanca's  door.  As  the  King  is  inviolate 
for  a  subject,  Garcia  resolves  to  slay  Blanca,  who  escapes 
to  court.  Garcia  is  summoned  by  the  King,  finds  his 
mistake,  settles  matters  by  slaying  Mendo  in  the  palace, 
and  explains  to  his  sovereign  (and  his  audience)  that 
none  under  the  King  can  affront  him  with  impunity. 
Rojas  Zorrilla's  style  occasionally  inclines  to  cultera- 
nismo ;  but  this  is  an  obvious  concession  to  popular 
taste,  his  true  manner  being  direct  and  energetic.  His 
clever  construction  and  witty  dialogue  are  best  studied 
in  Lo  que  son  Mujeres  (What  Women  are)  and  in  Entre 
Bobos  anda  el  Juego  (The  Boobies'  Sport). 

A  very  notable  talent  is  that  of  AGUSTIN  MORETO  Y 


334  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

CAVA&A  (1618-69),  whose  popularity  as  a  writer  of  cloak- 
and-sword  plays  is  only  less  than  Lope's.  In  1639  Moreto 
graduated  as  a  licentiate  in  arts  at  Alcala  de  Henares. 
Thence  he  made  his  way  to  Madrid,  where  he  found  a 
protector  in  Calder6n.  He  published  a  volume  of  plays 
in  1654,  and  is  believed  to  have  taken  orders  three  years 
later.  Moreto  is  not  a  great  inventor,  but  so  far  as  con- 
cerns stage-craft  he  is  above  all  contemporaries.  In 
El  Desctin  con  el  Desctin  (Scorn  for  Scorn)  he  borrows 
Lope's  Milagros  del  Desprecio  (Scorn  works  Wonders), 
and  it  is  fair  to  say  that  the  rifacimento  excels  the  ori- 
ginal at  every  point.  Diana,  daughter  of  the  Conde 
de  Barcelona,  mocks  at  marriage :  her  father  surrounds 
her  with  the  neighbouring  gallants,  among  whom  is  the 
Conde  de  Urgel.  Urgel's  affected  coolness  piques  the 
lady  into  a  resolve  to  captivate  him,  and  she  so  far 
succeeds  as  to  lead  him  to  avow  his  love  for  her :  he 
escapes  rejection  by  feigning  that  his  declaration  was 
a  jest,  and  the  dramatic  solution  is  brought  about  by 
Diana's  surrender.  The  plot  is  ordered  with  consum- 
mate skill,  the  dialogue  is  of  the  gayest  humour,  the 
characters  more  life-like  than  any  but  Alarcon's  ;  and 
as  evidence  of  the  playwright's  tact,  it  is  enough  to  say 
that  when  Moliere,  in  his  Princesse  (f£lide,  strove  to 
repeat  Moreto's  exploit  he  met  with  ignominious  disaster. 
In  the  delicacy  of  touch  with  which  Moreto  handles  a 
humorous  situation  he  is  almost  unrivalled  ;  and  in  the 
broader  spirit  of  farce,  his  graciosos — comic  characters, 
generally  body-servants  to  the  heroes — are  admirable  for 
natural  force  and  for  gusts  of  spontaneous  wit.  In  El 
Undo  Don  Diego  he  has  fixed  the  type  of  the  fop  con- 
vinced that  he  is  irresistible,  and  the  presentation  of 
fatuity  which  leads  Don  Diego  into  marriage  with  a 


MORETO  335 

serving-wench  (whom  he  mistakes  for  a  countess)  is 
among  the  few  masterpieces  of  high  comedy.  Moreto's 
historical  plays  are  of  less  universal  interest ;  in  this  kind, 
El  Rico  Hombre  de  Alcald  is  a  powerful  and  sympathetic 
picture  of  Pedro  the  Cruel — the  strong  man  doing  justice 
on  the  noble,  Tello  Garcia — from  the  standpoint  of  the 
Spanish  populace,  which  has  ever  respected  el  Rey  justi- 
ciero.  In  his  later  years  Moreto  betook  him  to  the  comedia 
devota;  his  San  Francisco  de  Sena  is  extravagantly  and 
almost  ludicrously  devout,  as  in  the  scenes  where  Fran- 
cisco wagers  his  eyes,  loses,  is  struck  blind,  and  repents 
on  recovering  his  sight.  The  devout  play  was  not 
Moreto's  calling  :  in  his  first  and  best  manner,  as  a 
master  of  the  lighter,  gayer  comedy,  he  holds  his  own 
against  all  Spain. 

Among  the  followers  of  Calder6n  are  Antonio  Cuello 
(d.  1652),  who  is  reported  to  have  collaborated  with 
Felipe  IV.  in  El  Conde  de  Essex ;  Alvaro  Cubillo  de 
Aragon  (fl.  1664),  whose  Perfecta  Casada  is  a  good  piece 
of  work ;  Juan  Matos  Fragoso  (?  1614-92),  who  bor- 
rowed and  plagiarised  with  successful  audacity ;  but 
these,  with  many  others,  are  mere  imitators,  and  the 
Spanish  theatre  declines  lower  and  lower,  till  in  the 
hands  of  Carlos  II.'s  favourite,  Francisco  Antonio  Bances 
Candamo  (1662-1704),  it  reaches  its  nadir.  The  last 
good  playwright  of  the  classic  age  is  ANTONIO  DE  SOLIS 
Y  RIVADENEIRA  (1610-86),  who,  by  the  accident  of  his 
long  life,  lends  a  ray  of  renown  to  the  deplorable  reign 
of  Carlos  II.  His  dramas  are  excellent  in  construction 
and  phrasing,  and  his  Amor  al  uso  was  popular  in  France 
through  Thomas  Corneille's  adaptation. 

But  his  title  to  fame  rests,  not  on  verse,  but  on 
prose.  His  Historia  de  la  Conquista  de  Mejico  (1684)  is 


336  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

a  most  distinguished  performance,  even  if  we  compare 
it  with  Mariana's.  Seeing  that  Solfs  lived  through  the 
worst  periods  of  Gongorism,  his  style  is  a  marvel  of 
purity,  though  a  difficult  critic  might  well  condemn  its 
cloying  suavity.  Still,  his  work  has  never  been  displaced 
since  its  first  appearance,  for  it  deals  with  a  very  pic- 
turesque period,  is  eloquent  and  clear,  and  is  almost 
excessively  patriotic  in  tone  and  spirit.  Gibbon,  in  his 
sixty-second  chapter,  mentions  "an  Aragonese  history 
which  I  have  read  with  pleasure  " — the  Expedition  de  los 
catalanes  y  aragoneses  contra  turcos  y  griegos  by  Francisco 
de  Moncada,  Conde  de  Osuna  (1586-1635).  "He  never 
quotes  his  authorities,"  adds  Gibbon  ;  and,  in  fact,  Mon- 
cada mostly  translates  from  Ramon  Muntaner's  Catalan 
Crdnica,  though  he  translates  in  excellent  fashion.  Diego 
de  Saavedra  Fajardo  (1584-1648)  writes  with  force  and 
ease  in  his  uncritical  Corona  Gdtica,  and  in  his  more 
interesting  literary  review,  the  Republica  literaria ;  his 
freedom  from  Gongorism  is  explained  by  the  fact  that 
he  passed  most  of  his  life  out  of  Spain.  The  Portuguese, 
FRANCISCO  MANUEL  DE  MELO  (1611-66),  is  ill  repre- 
sented by  his  Historia  de  los  Movimientos,  Separation  y 
Guerra  de  Cataluna  (1645),  where  he  is  given  over  to  both 
Gongorism  and  conceptisnto :  in  his  native  tongue — as  in 
his  Apologos  Dialogaes — he  writes  with  simplicity,  strength, 
and  wit.  Melo's  life  was  unlucky :  when  he  was  not  being 
shipwrecked,  he  was  in  jail  on  suspicion  of  being  a  mur- 
derer ;  and  being  out  of  jail,  he  was  exiled  to  Brazil.  His 
reward  is  posthumous  :  both  Portuguese  and  Spaniards 
hold  him  for  a  classic,  and  Sr.  Menendez  y  Pelayo  even 
compares  him  to  Quevedo. 

Another  man  of  Portuguese  birth  has  won  immortality 
outside  of  literature ;  yet  there  is  ground  for  thinking  that 


VELAZQUEZ  337 

DIEGO  RODRIGUEZ  DE  SILVA  Y  VELAZQUEZ  (1599-1660) 
had  the  sense  for  language  as  for  paint.  His  Memoria  de 
las  Pinturas  (1658)  exists  in  an  unique  copy  published 
at  Rome  under  the  name  of  his  pupil,  Juan  de  Alfaro, 
though  its  substance  is  unscrupulously  embodied  in 
Francisco  de  los  Santos'  Description  Breve  of  the  Escorial. 
Formally,  it  is  a  catalogue  ;  substantially,  it  expresses  the 
artist's  judgment  on  his  great  predecessors.  Thus,  of 
Paolo  Veronese's  Wedding  Feast  he  writes  : — "  There 
are  admirable  heads,  and  almost  all  of  them  seem  por- 
traits. Not  that  of  the  Virgin  :  she  has  more  reserve, 
more  divinity  :  though  very  beautiful,  she  corresponds 
fittingly  to  the  age  of  Christ,  who  is  beside  her — a  point 
which  most  artists  overlook,  for  they  paint  Christ  as  a 
man,  and  His  Mother  as  a  girl."  The  great  realist  speaks 
once  more  in  describing  Veronese's  Purification: — "The 
Virgin  kneels  .  .  .  holding  on  a  white  cloth  the  Child — 
naked,  beautiful,  and  tender — with  a  restlessness  so  suited 
to  his  age  that  He  seems  more  a  piece  of  living  flesh  than 
something  painted."  And,  in  the  same  spirit,  he  writes 
of  Tintoretto's  Washing  of  the  Feet: — "It  is  hard  to 
believe  that  one  is  looking  at  a  painting.  Such  is  the 
truth  of  colour,  such  the  exactness  of  perspective,  that 
one  might  think  to  go  in  and  walk  on  the  pavement, 
tessellated  with  stones  of  divers  colours,  which,  diminish- 
ing in  size,  make  the  room  seem  larger,  and  lead  you  to 
believe  that  there  is  atmosphere  between  each  figure. 
The  table,  seats  (and  a  dog  which  is  worked  in)  are  truth, 
not  paint.  .  .  .  Once  for  all,  any  picture  placed  beside  it 
looks  like  something  expressed  in  terms  of  colour,  and 
this  seems  all  the  truer."  Strangely  enough,  this  writing 
of  Velazquez  is  ignored  by  most,  perhaps  by  all,  of  his 
biographers;  yet  it  deserves  a  passing  reference  as  a 


338  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

model  of  energetic  expression  in  a  time  when  most  pro- 
fessional men  of  letters  were  Gongorists  or  conceptistas. 

A  certain  directness  of  style  is  found  in  Ger6nimo  de 
Alcala  Yanez  y  Ribera's  Alonso,  Mozo  de  muchos  Amos 
(1625),  in  Alonso  de  Castillo  Sol6rzano's  Gardufia  de 
Seville  (the  Seville  Weasel,  1634),  m  *ne  Siglo  Pitagorico 
(1644)  of  the  Segovian  Jew,  Antonio  Enn'quez  G6mez, 
and  in  the  half-true,  half -invented  Vida  y  Hechos  de 
Estebanillo  Gonzdlez  (1646) — all  picaresque  tales,  clever, 
amusing,  and  improper,  on  the  approved  pattern.  But 
the  pest  of  preciosity  spread  to  fiction,  is  conspicuous  in 
the  Espanol  Gerardo  of  Gonzalo  de  Cespedes  y  Meneses, 
and  steadily  degenerates  till  it  becomes  arrant  nonsense 
in  the  Varies  Efectos  de  Amor  (1641)  of  Alonso  de  Alcald  y 
Herrera — five  stories,  in  each  of  which  one  of  the  vowels 
is  omitted.  Alcala,  however,  had  neither  talent  nor 
influence.  The  Aragonese  Jesuit,  BALTASAR  GRACiAn. 
(1601-58),  had  both,  and  his  vogue  is  proved  by  nume- 
rous editions,  by  translations,  by  such  references  as  that 
in  the  Entretiens  of  Bouhours,  who  proclaims  him  "  le 
sublime''  Addison  thrice  mentions  him  with  respect  in 
the  Spectator,  and  it  is  suggested  that  Rycaut's  rendering 
of  the  Criticon  may  have  given  Defoe  the  idea  of  Man 
Friday.  In  the  present  century  Schopenhauer  vowed 
that  the  Criticon  was  "  one  of  the  best  books  in  the 
world,"  and  Sir  Mountstuart  Grant  Duff,  taking  his  cue 
from  Schopenhauer,  has  extolled  Gracian  with  some 
vehemence. 

Gracian  seems  to  have  been  indifferent  to  popularity, 
and  his  works,  published  somewhat  against  his  will  by 
his  friend,  Vincencio  Juan  de  Lastanosa,  were  mostly 
issued  under  the  name  of  Lorenzo  Gracian.  His  first 
work  was  El  Hfroe  (1630),  an  ideal  rendering  of  the 


4bJs* 
f 


<l  V.  ~ 

GRACIAN    f  339 

Happy  Warrior,  as  El  Discrete  (1647)  is  the  ideal  of  the 
Politic  Courtier  ;  more  important  than  either  is  the 
Agudeza  y  Arte  de  Ingenio  (1642),  a  conceptista  Art  of 
Rhetoric,  of  singular  learning,  subtlety,  and  catholic 
taste.  The  three  parts  of  the  Criticdn,  which  appeared 
between  1650  and  1653,  correspond  to  "the  spring  of 
childhood,"  "the  summer  of  youth,"  and  "the  autumn 
of  manhood."  In  this  allegory  of  life  the  shipwrecked 
Critilo  meets  the  wild  man  Andrenio,  who  finally  learns 
Spanish  and  reveals  his  soul  to  Critilo,  whom  he  accom- 
panies to  Spain,  where  he  communes  with  both  allegorical 
figures  and  real  personages  on  all  manner  of  philosophic 
questions.  The  general  tone  of  the  Criticdn  goes  far 
towards  explaining  Schopenhauer's  admiration  ;  for  the 
Spaniard  is  no  less  a  woman-hater,  is  no  less  bitter,  sar- 
castic, denunciatory,  and  pessimistic  than  the  German. 
Gracian,  to  use  his  own  phrase,  "flaunts  his  unhappi- 
ness  as  a  trophy"  in  phrases  whose  laboured  ingenuity 
begins  by  impressing,  and  ends  by  fatiguing,  the  reader. 
It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  Gracian's  attitude  towards 
life  is  more  than  a  pose  ;  but  the  pose  is  dignified,  and 
he  puts  the  pessimistic  case  with  vigour  and  skill.  His 
Ordculo  Manual  6  Arte  de  Prudencia  (1653),  a  reduction 
of  his  gospel  to  the  form  of  maxims,  has  found  admirers 
(and  even  an  excellent  translator  in  the  person  of  Mr. 
Joseph  Jacobs).  The  reflection  is  always  acute,  and 
seems  at  whiles  to  anticipate  the  thought  of  La  Roche- 
foucauld —  doubtless  because  both  drew  from  common 
sources  ;  but  though  the  doctrine  and  spirit  be  almost 
identical,  Gracidn  nowhere  approaches  La  Rochefou- 
cauld's metallic  brilliancy  and  concise  perfection.  He  is 
not  content  to  deliver  his  maxim,  and  have  done  with  it  : 
he  adds  —  so  to  say  —  elaborate  postscripts  and  epigram- 


340  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

matic  amplifications,  which  debase  the  maxim  to  a  plati- 
tude. Mr.  John  Morley's  remark,  that  "  some  of  his 
aphorisms  give  a  neat  turn  to  a  commonplace,"  is 
scarcely  too  severe.  Yet  one  cannot  choose  but  think 
that  Gracidn  was  superior  to  his  work.  He  had  it  in 
him  to  be  as  good  a  writer  as  he  was  a  keen  observer, 
and  in  many  passages,  when  he  casts  his  affectations  from 
him,  his  expression  is  as  lucid  and  as  strong  as  may  be  ; 
but  he  would  posture,  would  be  paradoxical  to  avoid 
being  trite,  would  bewilder  with  his  conceit  and  learn- 
ing, would  try  to  pack  more  meaning  into  words  than 
words  will  carry.  No  man  ever  wrote  with  more  care 
and  scruple,  with  more  ambition  to  excel  according  to 
the  formulae  of  a  fashionable  school,  with  more  scorn 
for  Gongorism  and  all  its  work.  Still,  though  he  avoided 
the  offence  of  obscure  language,  he  sinned  most  griev- 
ously by  obscurity  of  thought,  and  he  is  now  forgotten 
by  all  but  students,  who  look  upon  him  as  a  chief  among 
the  wrong-headed,  misguided  conceptistas. 

A  last  faint  breath  of  mysticism  is  found  in  the  Tra- 
tado  de  la  Hermosura  de  Dios  (1641)  by  the  Jesuit,  Juan 
Eusebio  Nieremberg  (1590-1658),  whose  prose,  though 
elegant  and  relatively  pure,  lacks  the  majesty  of  Luis 
de  Leon's  and  the  persuasiveness  of  Granada's.  More 
familiar  in  style,  the  letters  of  Felipe  IV.'s  friend,  Maria 
Coronel  y  Arana  (1602-65),  known  in  religion  as  Sor 
MARIA  DE  JESUS  DE  AGREDA,  may  still  be  read  with 
pleasure.  Professed  at  sixteen,  she  was  elected  abbess 
of  her  convent  at  twenty-five,  and  her  Mistica  Ciudad  de 
Dios  has  gone  through  innumerable  editions  in  almost 
all  languages;  her  Correspondencia  con  Felipe  IV.  extends 
over  twenty-two  years,  from  1643  onwards,  and  is  as  re- 
markable for  its  profound  piety  as  for  its  sound  appre- 


MOLINOS  341 

ciation  of  public  affairs.  The  common  interest  of  King 
and  nun  began  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Immaculate 
Conception,  which  both  desired  to  have  denned  as  an 
article  of  faith ;  domestic  and  foreign  politics  come 
under  discussion  later,  and  it  soon  becomes  plain  that 
the  nun  is  the  man.  While  Felipe  IV.  weakly  laments 
that  "  the  Cortes  are  seeking  places,  taking  no  more 
notice  of  the  insurrection  than  if  the  enemy  were  at 
the  Philippines,"  Sor  Marfa  de  Jesus  strives  to  steady 
him,  to  lend  him  something  of  her  own  strong  will,  by 
urging  him  to  "be  a  King,"  "to  do  his  duty."  There  is 
a  curious  reference  to  the  passing  of  Cromwell — "the 
enemy  of  our  faith  and  kingdom,  the  only  person  whose 
death  I  ever  desired,  or  ever  prayed  to  God  for."  Her 
practical  advice  fell  on  deaf  ears,  and  when  she  died, 
no  man  seemed  left  in  Spain  to  realise  that  the  country 
was  slowly  bleeding  to  death,  becoming  a  cypher  in 
politics,  in  art,  in  letters. 

One  single  ecclesiastic  rises  above  his  fellows  during 
the  ruinous  reign  of  Carlos  the  Bewitched,  and  his 
renown  is  greater  out  of  Spain  than  in  it.  MIGUEL  DE 
MOLINOS  (1627-97),  the  founder  of  Quietism,  was  a 
native  of  Muniesa,  near  Zaragoza ;  was  educated  by  the 
Jesuits  ;  and  held  a  living  at  Valencia.  He  journeyed 
to  Rome  in  1665,  won  vast  esteem  as  a  confessor,  and 
there,  in  1675,  published  his  famous  Spiritual  Guide  in 
Italian.  Mr.  Shorthouse,  an  English  apostle  of  Quietism, 
mentions  a  Spanish  rendering  which  "won  such  popu- 
larity in  his  native  country  that  some  are  still  found  who 
declare  that  the  Spanish  version  is  earlier  than  the 
Italian."  It  is  almost  certain  that  Molinos  wrote  in 
Spanish,  and  to  judge  by  the  translations,  he  must  have 
written  with  admirable  force.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 


342  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

no  Spanish  version  was  ever  popular  in  Spain,  for  the 
reason  that  none  has  ever  existed.  This  is  not  the  place 
to  discuss  the  personal  character  of  Molinos,  who  stands 
accused  of  grave  crimes ;  nor  to  weigh  the  value  of  his 
teaching,  nor  to  follow  its  importation  into  France  by 
Mme.  de  la  Mothe  Guyon ;  nor  to  look  into  the  contro- 
versy which  wrecked  Fe"nelon's  career.  Still  it  should 
be  noted  as  characteristic  of  Carlos  II.'s  reign,  that  a 
book  by  one  of  his  subjects  was  influencing  all  Europe 
without  any  man  in  Spain  being  aware  of  it. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  AGE  OF  THE  BOURBONS 
1700-1808 

LETTERS,  arts,  and  even  rational  politics,  practically  died 
in  Spain  during  the  reign  of  Carlos  II.  Good  work  was 
done  in  serious  branches  of  study  :  in  history  by  Caspar 
Ibanez  de  Segovia  Peralta  y  Mendoza,  Marques  de  Mon- 
dejar  ;  in  bibliography  by  Nicolas  Antonio  ;  in  law  by 
Francisco  Ramos  del  Manzano  ;  in  mathematics  by  Hugo 
de  Omerique,  whose  analytic  gifts  won  the  applause  of 
Newton.  But  all  the  rest  was  neglected  while  the  King 
was  exorcised,  and  was  forced  to  swallow  a  quart  of  holy 
oil  as  a  counter-charm  against  the  dead  men's  brains 
given  him  (as  it  was  alleged)  by  his  mother  in  a  cup  of 
chocolate.  Nor  did  the  nightmare  lift  with  his  death  on 
November  i,  1700  :  the  War  of  the  Succession  lasted  till 
the  signing  of  the  Utrecht  Treaty  in  1713.  The  new 
sovereign,  Felipe  V.,  grandson  of  Louis  XIV.,  interested 
himself  in  the  progress  of  his  people  ;  and  being  a 
Frenchman  of  his  time,  he  believed  in  the  centralisation 
of  learning.  His  chief  ally  was  that  Marques  de  Villena 
familiar  to  all  readers  of  St.  Simon  as  the  major-domo 
who  used  his  wand  upon  Cardinal  Alberoni's  skull : — "  II 
leve  son  petit  baton  et  le  laisse  tomber  de  toute  sa  force 
dru  et  menu  sur  les  oreilles  du  cardinal,  en  1'appelant  petit 
coquin,  petit  faquin,  petit  impudent  qui  ne  meritoit  que 

23  343 


344  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

les  etrivieres."  But  even  St.  Simon  admits  Villena's  rare 
qualities: — "II  savoit  beaucoup,  et  il  etoit  de  toute  sa 
vie  en  commerce  avec  la  plupart  de  tous  les  savants  des 
divers  pays  de  1'Europe.  .  .  .  C'etait  un  homme  bon,  doux, 
honnete,  sense  .  .  .  enfin  1'honneur,  la  probite,  la  valeur, 
la  vertu  meme."  In  1711  the  Biblioteca  Nacional  was 
founded ;  in  1714  the  Spanish  Academy  of  the  Lan- 
guage was  established,  with  Villena  as  "director,"  and 
soon  set  to  earnest  work.  The  only  good  lexicon  pub- 
lished since  Nebrija's  was  Sebastidn  de  Covarrubias  y 
Horozco's  Tesoro  de  la  Lengua  castellana  (1611):  under 
Villena's  guidance  the  Academy  issued  the  six  folios 
of  its  Dictionary,  commonly  called  the  Diccionario  de 
Autoridades  (1726-39).  Accustomed  to  his  Littre,  his 
Grimm,  to  the  scientific  methods  of  MM.  Arsene  Dar- 
mesteter,  Hatzfeld,  and  Thomas,  and  to  that  monu- 
mental work  now  publishing  at  the  Clarendon  Press,  the 
modern  student  is  too  prone  to  dwell  on  the  defects — 
manifest  enough — of  the  Spanish  Academy's  Dictionary. 
Yet  it  was  vastly  better  than  any  other  then  existing  in 
Europe,  is  still  of  unique  value  to  scholars,  and  was  so 
much  too  good  for  its  age  that,  in  1780,  it  was  cut  down 
to  one  poor  volume.  The  foundation  of  the  Academy  of 
History,  under  Agustfn  de  Montiano,  in  1738,  is  another 
symptom  of  French  authority. 

Mr.  Gosse  and  Dr.  Garnett,  in  previous  volumes  of  the 
present  series,  have  justly  emphasised  the  predominance 
of  French  methods  both  in  English  and  Italian  literature 
during  the  eighteenth  century.  In  Germany  the  French 
sympathies  of  Frederick  the  Great  and  of  Wieland  were  to 
be  no  less  obvious.  Sooner  or  later,  it  was  inevitable  that 
Spain  should  undergo  the  French  influence  ;  yet,  though 
the  French  nationality  of  the  King  is  a  factor  to  be  taken 


THE   FRENCH   FASHION  345 

into  account,  his  share  in  the  literary  revolution  is  too 
often  exaggerated.  Long  before  Felipe  V.  was  born 
Spaniards  had  begun  to  interest  themselves  in  French 
literature.  Thus  Quevedo,  who  translated  the  Intro- 
duction a  la  Vie  Devote  of  St.  Francois  de  Sales,  showed 
himself  familiar  with  the  writings  of  a  certain  Miguel  d 
Montana,  more  recognisable  as  Michel  de  Montaigne. 
Juan  Bautista  Diamante,  apparently  ignorant  of  Guillen  ^ 
de  Castro's  play,  translated  Corneille's  Cid  under  the 
title  of  El  Honrador  de  su  padre  (1658)  ;  and  in  March 
1680  an  anonymous  arrangement  of  the  Bourgeois  Gentil- 
homme  was  given  at  the  Buen  Retiro  under  the  title  of 
El  Labrador  Gentilhombre.  Still  more  significant  is  an 
incident  recalled  by  Sr.  Menendez  y  Pelayo  :  the  staging 
of  Corneille's  Rodogune  and  Moliere's  Les  Femmes  Sa- 
vantes  at  Lima,  about  the  year  1710,  in  Castilian  ver- 
sions, made  by  Pedro  de  Peralta  Barnuevo.  Compared 
with  this,  the  Madrid  translations  of  Corneille's  Cinna 
and  of  Racine's  Iphige"nie,  by  Francisco  de  Pizarro  y 
Piccolomini,  Marques  de  San  Juan  (1713),  and  by  Jose 
de  Canizares  (1716),  are  of  small  moment.  The  latter 
performances  may  very  well  have  been  due  in  great  part 
to  the  personal  influence  of  the  celebrated  Madame  des 
Ursins,  an  active  French  agent  at  the  Spanish  court. 

Readers  curious  as  to  the  Spanish  poets  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  may  turn  with  confidence  to  the  masterly 
and  exhaustive  Historia  Critica  of  the  Marques  de  Valmar. 
Their  number  may  be  inferred  from  this  detail :  that  more 
than  one  hundred  and  fifty  competed  at  a  poetic  joust 
held  in  honour  of  St.  Aloysius  Gonzaga  and  St.  Stanislaus 
Kostka  in  1727.  But  none  of  all  the  tribe  is  of  real  im- 
portance. It  is  enough  to  mention  the  names  of  Juan 
Jose"  de  Salazar  y  Hontiveros,  a  priestly  copromaniac, 


346  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

like  his  contemporary,  Swift ;  of  Jose  Le6n  y  Mansilla, 
who  wrote  a  third  Soledad  in  continuation  of  G6ngora ; 
and  of  Sor  Maria  del  Cielo,  a  mild  practitioner  in  lyrical 
mysticism.  A  little  later  there  follow  Gabriel  Alvarez  de 
Toledo,  a  representative  conceptista ;  Eugenio  Gerardo 
Lobo,  a  romantic  soldier  with  a  craze  for  versifying ; 
Diego  de  Torres  y  Villarroel,  an  encyclopaedic  professor 
at  Salamanca,  who,  half-knowing  everything  from  the 
cedar  by  Lebanon  to  the  hyssop  that  groweth  on  the 
wall,  showed  critical  insight  by  the  contempt  in  which 
he  held  his  own  rhymes.  The  Carmelite,  Fray  Juan  de 
la  Concepcion,  a  Gongorist  of  the  straitest  sect,  was  the 
idol  of  his  generation,  and  proved  his  quality,  when  he 
was  elected  to  the  Academy  in  1744,  by  returning  thanks 
in  a  rhymed  speech  :  an  innovation  which  scandalised 
his  brethren,  and  has  never  been  repeated. 

A  head  and  shoulders  over  these  rises  the  figure  of 
.  IGNACIO  DE  LUZAN. CLARAMUNT  DE  SHELVES  Y  GURREA 
(1702-54),  who,  spending  his  youth  in  Italy,  was — so  it 
is  believed — a  pupil  of  Giovanni  Battista  Vico  at  Naples, 
where  he  remained  during  eighteen  years.  For  his  cen- 
tury, Luzan's  equipment  was  considerable.  His  Greek 
and  Latin  were  of  the  best ;  Italian  was  almost  his  native 
tongue ;  he  read  Descartes  and  epitomised  the  Port- 
Royal  treatise  on  logic  ;  he  was  versed  in  German,  and, 
meeting  with  Paradise  Lost — probably  during  his  resi- 
dence as  Secretary  to  the  Embassy  in  Paris  (1747-50) — 
he  first  revealed  Milton  to  Spain  by  translating  select 
passages  into  prose.  His  verses,  original  and  translated, 
are  insignificant,  though,  as  an  instance  of  his  French 
taste,  his  version  of  Lachaussee's  Prejuge'  a  la  Mode  is 
worthy  of  notice :  not  so  the  four  books  of  his  Po^tica 
(1737).  So  early  as  1728,  Luzan  prepared  six  Ragiona- 


LUZAN 

menti  sopra  la  poesia  for  the  Palermo  Academy,  and  on 
his  return  to  Spain  in  1733  he  re-arranged  his  treatise 
in  Castilian.  The  Pottica  avowedly  aims  at  "subjecting 
Spanish  verse  to  the  rules  which  obtain  among  cultured 
nations " ;  and  though  its  basis  is  Lodovico  Muratori's 
Delia  perfetta  poesia,  with  suggestions  borrowed  from 
Vincenzo  Gravina  and  Giovanni  Crescimbeni,  the  general 
drift  of  Luzan's  teaching  coincides  with  that  of  French 
doctrinaires  like  Rapin,  Boileau,  and  Le  Bossu.  It  seems 
probable  that  his  views  became  more  and  more  French^*  7> 
with  time,  for  the  posthumous  reprint  of  the  Pottica 
(1789)  shows  an  increase  of  anti-national  spirit ;  but  on 
this  point  it  is  hard  to  judge,  inasmuch  as  his  pupil  and 
editor,  Eugenic  de  Llaguno  y  Amfrola  (a  strong  French 
partisan,  who  translated  Racine's  Athalie  in  1754),  is  sus- 
pected of  tampering  with  this  text,  as  he  adulterated  that 
of  Diaz  Gamez'  Cronica  del  Conde  de  Buelna. 

Luzan's  destructive  criticisms  are  always  acute,  and 
are  generally  just.  Lope  is  for  him  a  genius  of  amazing 
force  and  variety,  while  Calder6n  is  a  singer  of  exquisite 
music.  With  this  ingratiating  prelude,  he  has  no  diffi- 
culty in  exposing  their  most  obvious  defects,  and  his 
attack  on  Gongorism  is  delivered  with  great  spirit.  It  is 
in  construction  that  he  fails :  as  when  he  avers  that  the 
ends  of  poetry  and  moral  philosophy  are  identical,  thut 
Homer  was  a  didactic  poet  expounding  political  and 
transcendental  truths  to  the  vulgar,  that  epics  exist  for 
the  instruction  of  monarchs  and  military  chiefs,  that  the 
period  of  a  play's  action  should  correspond  precisely 
with  the  time  that  the  play  takes  in  acting.  Luzan's 
rigorous  logic  ends  by  reducing  to  absurdity  the  didac- 
tic  theories  of  the  eighteenth  century  ;  yet,  for  all  his 
logic,  he  had  a  genuine  love  of  poetry,  which  induced 


348  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

him  to  neglect  his  abstract  rules.  It  is  true  that  he 
scarcely  utters  a  proposition  which  is  not  contradicted 
by  implication  in  other  parts  of  his  treatise.  Neverthe- 
less, his  book  has  both  a  literary  and  an  historic  value. 
Written  in  excellent  style  and  temper,  with  innumerable 
parallels  from  many  literatures,  the  Pottica  served  as  a 
manifesto  which  summoned  Spain  to  fall  into  line  with 
academic  Europe  ;  and  Spain,  among  the  least  academic 
because  among  the  most  original  of  countries,  ended  by 
obeying.  Her  old  inspiration  had  passed  away  with  her 
wide  dominion,  and  Luzan  deserves  credit  for  lending 
her  a  new  opportune  impulse. 

He  was  not  to  win  without  a  battle.  The  official 
licensers,  Manuel  Gallinero  and  Miguel  Navarro,  took 
public  objection  to  the  retrospective  application  of  his 
doctrines,  and  a  louder  note  of  opposition  was  sounded 
in  a  famous  quarterly,  the  Diario  de  los  Literates  de 
Espafta,  founded  in  1737  by  Juan  Martinez  Salafranca 
and  Leopoldo  Ger6nimo  Puig.  Though  the  Diario  was 
patronised  by  Felipe  V.,  though  its  judgments  are  now 
universally  accepted,  it  came  before  its  time  :  the  bad 
authors  whom  it  victimised  combined  against  it,  and, 
as  the  public  remained  indifferent,  the  review  was  soon 
suspended.  Even  among  the  contributors  to  the  Diario, 
Luzan  found  an  ally  in  the  person  of  the  clerical  lawyer, 
JOSE  GERARDO  DE  HERVAS  Y  COBO  DE  LA  TORRE  (d. 
1742),  author  of  the  popular  Sdtira  contra  los  nialos 
Escritores  de  su  Ttemfo.  Herv£s,  who  took  the  pseu- 
donym of  Jorge  Pitillas,  wrote  with  boldness,  with  critical 
sense,  with  an  ease  and  point  and  grace  which  engraved 
his  verse  upon  the  general  memory  ;  so  that  to  this  day 
many  of  his  lines  are  as  familiar  to  Spaniards  as  are 
Pope's  to  Englishmen.  They  err  who  hold  with  Ticknor 


FEIJ6O:    SARMIENTO  349 

that  Hervas  imitated  Persius  and  Juvenal:  in  style  and 
doctrine  his  immediate  model  was  Boileau,  whom  he 
adapts  with  rare  skill,  and  without  any  acknowledg- 
ment. He  carries  a  step  further  the  French  doctrines, 
insinuated  rather  than  proclaimed  in  the  Poetica,  and, 
though  he  was  not  an  avowed  propagandist,  his  sarcastic 
epigrams  perhaps  did  more  than  any  formal  treatise  to 
popularise  the  new  doctrines. 

A  reformer  on  the  same  lines  was  the  Benedictine,  X^//I 
BENITO  GERONIMO  FEIJOO  Y  MONTENEGRO  (1675-1764), 
whose  Teatro  crltico  and  Cartas  eruditas  y  curiosas  were 
as  successful  in  Spain  as  were  the  Tatler  and  Spectator  in 
England.      Feij6o's  style  is  laced  with  Gallicisms,  and 
his  vain,  insolent  airs  of   infallibility  are  antipathetic  ;      / 
yet  though  his  admirers  have  made  him  ridiculous  byTXt. 
calling    him    "  the    Spanish    Voltaire,"    his    intellectual 
curiosity,  his  cautious  scepticism,  his  lucid  intelligence, 
his    fine    scent   for   a   superstitious    fallacy,   place    him 
among  the  best  writers  of  his  age.     A  happy  instance  - 
of  his  skill  in  exposing  a  paradox  is  his  indictment  ofA'^r? 
Rousseau's   Discours   sur   les    Sciences  et  les  Arts.     His        be* 
rancorous   tongue   raised   up    crowds  of   enemies,  who 
scrupled    not    to    circulate   vague    rumours    as    to    his 
heretical    tendencies  :    in    fact,   his    orthodoxy   was  as 
unimpeachable  as  were  the  services  which  he  rendered        / 
to   his   country's   enlightenment.      His   cause,   and   the 
cause  of_learning  generally,  were  championed  by  the 
Galician,  Pedro  Jose  Garcia  y  Balboa,  best  known  as 
MARTIN   SARMIENTO  (1695-1772),  the  name  which  he 
bore  in  the  Benedictine  order.     Sarmiento's  erudition 
is  at  least  equal  to  Feijoo's,  and  his  industry  is  matched 
by  the  variety  of  his  interests.    As  a  botanist  he  won 
the  admiration  and  friendship  of  Linn6 ;  Feij6o's  Teatro 


350  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

critico  owes  much  to  his  unselfish  supervision  ;  yet, 
while  his  name  was  esteemed  throughout  Europe,  he 
shrank  from  domestic  criticism,  and  withheld  his  mis- 
cellaneous works  from  the  press.  He  owes  his  place 
in  literature  to  his  posthumous  Memorias  para  la  historia 
de  la  Poesiay  Poetas  espafioles,  which,  despite  its  excessive 
local  patriotism,  is  not  only  remarkable  for  its  shrewd 
insight,  but  forms  the  point  of  departure  for  all  later 
studies.  Not  less  useful  was  the  life's  work  of  GREGORIO 
MAYANS  Y  SISCAR  (1699-1781),  who  was  the  first  to  print 
Juan  de  Valdes'  Didlogo  de  la  Lengua,  who  was  the  first 
biographer  of  Cervantes,  and  who  edited  Luis  Vives, 
Luis  de  Le6n,  Monde1  jar,  and  others.  Though  much  of 
Mayans'  writing  has  grown  obsolete  in  its  methods,  he 
is  honourably  remembered  as  a  pioneer,  and  his  Origenes 
de  la  Lengua  castellana  is  full  of  wise  suggestion  and  acute 


divination. 
P: 


Prominent  among  Luzan's  followers  in  the  self-con- 
stituted Academia  del  Buen  Gusto  is  BLAS  ANTONIO 
NASARRE  Y  FERRIZ  (1689-1751),  an  industrious,  learned 
polygraph  who  carried  party  spirit  so  far  as  to  reproduce 
Avellaneda's  spurious  Don  Quixote  (1732),  on  the  specific 
ground  that  it  was  in  every  way  superior  to  the  genuine 
sequel.  Cervantes,  indeed,  was  an  object  of  pitying 
contempt  to  Nasarre,  who,  when  he  reprinted  Cervantes' 
plays  in  1749,  contended  that  they  not  only  were  the 
worst  ever  written,  but  that  they  were  a  heap  of  follies 
deliberately  invented  to  burlesque  Lope  de  Vega's 
theatre.  Of  the  same  school  is  Lope's  merciless  foe, 

AGUSTfN  MONTIANO  Y  LUYANDO  (1697-1765),  author  of 
two  poor  tragedies,  the  Virginia  and  the  Atanlfo,  models 
of  dull  academic  correctness.  Yet  he  found  an  illus- 
trious admirer  in  the  person  of  Lessing,  who,  by  his 


ISLA  351 

panegyric  on  Montiano  in  the  Theatralische  Bibliotek, 
remains  as  a  standing  example  of  the  fallibility  of  the 
greatest  critics  when  they  pronounce  judgment  on 
foreign  literatures.  Even  more  exaggerated  than  Mon- 
tiano was  the  Marques  de  Valdeflores,  Luis  JOSE  VELAZ- 
QUEZ DE  VELASCO  (1722-72),  whom  we  have  already 
seen  ascribing  Torre's  poems  to  Quevedo,  an  error 
almost  sufficient  to  ruin  any  reputation.  Velazquez 
expressed  his  general  literary  views  in  his  Origenes  de 
la  Poesia  castellana  (1749),  which  found  an  enthusi- 
astic translator  in  Johann  Andreas  Dieze,  of  Gottingen. 
Velazquez  develops  and  emphasises  the  teaching  of  his 
predecessors,  denounces  the  dramatic  follies  of  Lope 
and  Calder6n,  and  even  goes  so  far  as  to  regret  that 
Nasarre  should  waste  his  powder  on  two  common, 
discredited  fellows  like  Lope  and  Cervantes.  It  is  im- 
possible for  us  here  to  record  the  polemics  in  which 
Luzan's  teaching  was  supported  or  combated  ;  defective 
as  it  was,  it  had  at  least  the  merit  of  rousing  Spain  from 
her  intellectual  torpor. 

Some  effect  of  the  new  criticism  is  seen  in  the  works 
of  the  Jesuit,  JOSE  FRANCISCO  DE  ISLA  (1703-81),  whose 
finer  humour  is  displayed  in  his  Triunfo  del  Amor  y  de 
la  Lealtad  (1746),  which  professes  to  describe  the  pro- 


clamation at  Pamplona  of  Ferdinand  VI.'s  accession. 
The  author  was  officially  thanked  by  Council  and 
Chapter,  and  some  expressed  by  gifts  their  gratitude 
for  his  handsome  treatment.  As  Basques  joke  with 
difficulty,  it  was  not  until  two  months  later  that  the 
Triunfo  (which  bears  the  alternative  title  of  A  Great 
Day  for  Navarre)  was  suspected  to  be  a  burlesque  of 
the  proceedings  and  all  concerned  in  them.  Isla  kept 
his  countenance  while  he  assured  his  victims  of  his  entire 


352  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

good  faith  ;  the  latter,  however,  expressed  their  slow- 
witted  indignation  in  print,  and  brought  such  pressure 
to  bear  that  the  lively  Jesuit — who  kept  up  the  farce  of 
denial  till  the  last  day  of  his  life — was  removed  from 
Pamplona  by  his  superiors.  The  incorrigible  wag  de- 
parted to  become  a  fashionable  preacher;  but  his  sense  of 
humour  accompanied  him  to  church,  and  was  displayed 
at  the  cost  of  his  brethren.  Paravicino,  as  we  have 
already  observed,  introduced  Gongorism  into  the  pulpit, 
and  his  lead  was  followed  by  men  of  lesser  faculty,  who 
reproduced  "  the  contortions  of  the  Sibyl  without  her 
inspiration."  By  degrees  preaching  almost  grew  to  be 
a  synonym  for  buffoonery,  and  by  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  it  was  as  often  as  not  an  occasion 
for  the  vulgar  profanity  which  pleases  devout  illiterates. 
It  is  impossible  to  cite  here  the  worst  excesses ;  it  is 
enough  to  note  that  a  "  cultured  "  congregation  applauded 
a  preacher  who  dared  to  speak  of  "the  divine  Adonis, 
Christ,  enamoured  of  that  singular  Psyche,  Mary ! " 
Bishops  in  their  pastorals,  monks  like  Feijoo  in  his 
Cartas  eruditas,  and  laymen  like  Mayans  in  his  Orador 
Cristiano  (1733),  strove  ineffectually  to  reform  the  abuse  : 
where  exhortation  failed,  satire  succeeded.  Isla  had 
witnessed  these  pulpit  extravagances  at  first  hand,  and 
his  six  quarto  volumes  of  sermons — none  of  them  in- 
spiring to  read,  however  impressive  when  delivered — 
show  that  he  himself  had  begun  by  yielding  to  a  mode 
from  which  his  good  sense  soon  freed  him. 

His  Historia  del  famoso  Predicador  Fray  Gerundio  de 
Campazas,  alias  Zotes  (1758),  published  by  Isla  under  the 
name  of  his  friend,  Francisco  Lob6n  de  Salazar,  parish 
priest  of  Aguilar  and  Villagarcia  del  Campo,  is  an  attempt 
to  do  for  pulpit  profanity  what  Don  Quixote  had  done  for 


FRAY  GERUNDIO  353 

chivalresque  extravagances.  It  purports  to  be  the  story 
of  a  peasant-boy,  Gerundio,  with  a  natural  faculty  for 
clap-trap,  which  leads  him  to  take  orders,  and  gains  for 
him  no  small  consideration.  A  passage  from  the  sermon 
which  decided  Gerundio's  childish  vocation  may  be 
quoted  as  typical : — "  Fire,  fire,  fire  !  the  house  is  a-flame ! 
Domus  mea,  domus  orationis  vocabitur.  Now,  sacristan, 
peal  those  resounding  bells  :  in  cymbalis  bene  sonantibus. 
That's  the  style  :  as  the  judicious  Picinelus  observed,  a 
death-knell  and  a  fire-tocsin  are  just  the  same.  Lazarus 
amicus  noster  dormit.  Water,  sirs,  water  !  the  earth  is 
consumed — quis  dabit  capiti  meo  aquam.  .  .  .  Stay  !  what 
do  I  behold  ?  Christians,  alas  !  the  souls  of  the  faithful 
are  a-fire  \-fidelium  anima.  Molten  pitch  feeds  the 
hungry  flames  like  tinder  :  requiescat  in  pace,  id  estt  in 
pice,  as  Vetablus  puts  it.  How  God's  fire  devours  !  ignis 
a  Deo  Hiatus.  Tidings  of  great  joy  !  the  Virgin  of  Mount 
Carmel  descends  to  save  those  who  wore  her  holy 
scapular :  scapulis  suis.  Christ  says :  '  Help  in  the 
King's  name  ! '  The  Virgin  pronounceth  :  '  Grace  be 
with  me  !'  Ave  Maria."  And  so  forth  at  much  length. 

Isla  fails  in  his  attempt  to  solder  fast  impossibilities,  to 
amalgamate  rhetorical  doctrine  with  farcical  burlesque ; 
nor  has  his  book  the  saving  quality  of  style.  Still,  though 
it  be  too  long  drawn  out,  it  abounds  with  an  emphatic, 
violent  humour  which  is  almost  irresistible  at  a  first 
reading.  The  Second  Part,  published  in  1770,  is  a  work 
of  supererogation.  The  First  caused  a  furious  contro- 
versy in  which  the  regulars  combined  to  throw  mud  at 
the  Jesuits  with  such  effect  that,  in  1760,  the  Holy  Office 
intervened,  confiscated  the  volume,  and  forbade  all  argu- 
ment for  or  against  it.  Ridicule,  however,  did  its  work 
in  surreptitious  copies ;  so  that  when  the  author  was 


354  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

expelled  from  Spain  with  the  rest  of  his  order  in  1765, 
Fray  Gerundio  and  his  like  were  reformed  characters. 
In  1787  Isla  translated  Gil  Bias,  under  the  impression 
that  he  was  "  restoring  the  book  to  its  native  land."  The 
suggestion  that  Le  Sage  merely  plagiarised  a  Spanish 
original  is  due  in  the  first  place  to  Voltaire,  who 
made  it,  for  spiteful  reasons  of  his  own,  in  the  famous 
Siecle  de  Louis  XIV.  (1751).  As  some  fifteen  or  twenty 
episodes  are  unquestionably  borrowed  from  Espinel  and 
others,  it  was  not  unnatural  that  Spaniards  should  (rather 
late  in  the  day)  take  Voltaire  at  his  word  ;  none  the  less, 
the  character  of  Gil  Bias  himself  is  as  purely  French  as 
may  be,  and  Le  Sage  vindicates  his  originality  by  his 
distinguished  treatment  of  borrowed  matter.  Isla's  ver- 
sion is  a  sound,  if  unnecessary,  piece  of  work,  spoiled  by 
the  inclusion  of  a  worthless  sequel  due  to  the  Italian, 
Giulio  Monti. 

The  action  of  French  tradition  is  visible  in  NICOLAS 
FERNANDEZ  DE  MoRATfN  (1737-80),  whose  Hormesinda 
(1770),  a  dramatic  exercise  in  Racine's  manner,  too  highly 
rated  by  literary  friends,  was  condemned  by  the  public. 
His  prose  dissertations  consist  of  invectives  against  Lope 
and  Calderon,  and  of  eulogies  on  Luzan's  cold  verse. 
These  are  all  forgotten,  and  Morati'n,  who  remained  a 
good  patriot,  despite  his  efforts  to  Gallicise  himself,  sur- 
vives at  his  best  in  his  brilliant  panegyric  on  bull-fighting 
— the  Fiesta  de  Toros  en  Madrid — whose  spirited  quin- 
tillas,  modelled  after  Lope's  example,  are  in  every 
Spaniard's  memory. 

Moratm's  friend,  JOSE  DE  CADALSO__Y  VAZQUEZ  (1741- 

lr     1782),  a  colonel  in  the  Bourbon  Regiment,  after  passing 

most  of  his  youth  in  Paris,  travelled  through  England, 

Germany,   and   Italy,  returning   as   free   from    national 


CADALSO  355 

prejudices  as  a  young  man  can  hope  to  be.  A  certain 
elevation  of  character  and  personal  charm  made  him  a 
force  among  his  intimates,  and  even  impressed  strangers ; 
as  we  may  judge  by  the  fact  that,  when  he  was  killed 
at  the  siege  of  Gibraltar,  the  English  army  wore 
mourning  for  him.  His  more  catholic  taste  avoided 
the  exaggerations  of  Nasarre  and  Moratin  ;  he  found 
praise  for  the  national  theatre,  and  many  of  his  verses 
imply  close  study  of  Villegas  and  Quevedo.  Even  so, 
his  attachment  to  the  old  school  was  purely  theoretical. 
His  knowledge  of  English  led  him  to  translate  in  verse — 
as  Luzan  had  already  translated  in  prose — passages  from 
Paradise  Lost ;  his  sepulchral  Noches  Lugubres,  written 
upon  the  death  of  his  mistress,  the  actress  Maria  Ignacia 
Ibanez,  are  plainly  inspired  by  Young's  Night  Thoughts ; 
his  Cartas  Marruecas  derive  from  the  Lettres  Persanes  ; 
his  tragedy,  Don  Sancho  Garcia,  an  attempt  to  put  in 
practice  the  canons  of  the  French  drama,  transplants 
to  Spain  the  rhymed  couplets  of  the  Parisian  stage. 
The  best  example  of  Cadalso's  cultivated  talent  is  his 
poem  entitled  Eruditos  d  la  Violeta,  wherein  he  satirises 
pretentious  scholarship  with  a  light,  firm  touch.  In 
curious  contrast  with  Cadalso's  Don  Sancho  Garcia  is  the 
Raquel  (1778)  of  his  friend  VICENTE  ANTONIO  GARCIA^/ 
DE  LA  HUERTA  Y  MuNOZ  (1734-87),  whose  troubles 
would  seem  to  have  affected  his  brain.  Though  Huerta 
brands  Corneille  and  Racine  as  a  pair  of  lunatics, 
he  is  a  strait  observer  of  the  sacred  "  unities "  :  in  all 
other  respects — in  theme,  monarchical  sentiment,  sono- 
rity of  versification — Raquel  is a return  upon  the  ancient 
classic  models._  Its  disfavour  among  foreign  critics  is 
inexplicable,  for  no  contemporary  drama  equals  it  in 
national  savour.  Huerta's  good  intention  exceeds  his 


356  SPANISH  LITERATURE 


performance  in  the  Theatro  Hespailol,  a  collection  (in 
seventeen  volumes)  of  national  plays,  arranged  without 
much  taste  or  knowledge. 

This  involved  him  in  a  bitter  controversy,  which  pro- 
bably shortened  his  life.  Prominent  among  his  enemies 
was  the  Basque,  FELIX  MARIA  DE  SAMANIEGO  (1745- 
1801),  whose  early  education  was  entirely  French,  and  who 
regarded  Lope  much  as  Voltaire  regarded  Shakespeare. 
Though  Huerta's  intemperance  lost  him  his  cause,  Sama- 
niego's  real  triumph  was  in  another  field  than  that  of 
controversy.  His  Fdbulas  (1781-94),  mostly  imitations 
or  renderings  of  Phaedrus,  La  Fontaine,  and  Gay,  are 
almost  the  best  in  their  kind — simple,  clear,  and  forc- 
ible. A  year  earlier  than  Samaniego,  the  Jesuit  Lasala, 
of  Bologna,  had  translated  the  fables  of  Lukman  al- 
Haklm  into  Latin,  and,  in  1784,  Miguel  Garcia  Asensio 
published  a  Castilian  version.  It  does  not  appear  that 
Samaniego  knew  anything  of  Lasala,  nor  was  he  dis- 
turbed by  Garcia  Asensio's  translation.  Before  the  latter 
was  in  print,  he  was  annoyed  at  finding  himself  rivalled  by 
TOMAS  DE  IRIARTE  Y  OROPESA  (1750-91),  who  had  begun 
his  career  as  a  prose  translator  of  Moliere  and  Voltaire, 
and  had  charmed — or  at  least  had  drawn  effusive  compli- 
ments from — Metastasio  with  a  frigid  poem,  La  Miisica 
(1780).  In  the  following  year  Iriarte  published  his 
Fdbulas  literarias,  putting  the  versified  apologue  to  doc- 
trinal uses,  censuring  literary  faults,  and  expounding 
what  he  held  to  be  true  doctrine.  He  took  most  pride 
in  his  plays,  El  SeHorito  mimado  and  La  Seflorita  mat 
criada ;  yet  the  Spoiled  Young  Gentleman  and  the  Ill- 
bred  Young  Lady  are  forgotten— somewhat  unjustly — by 
all  but  students,  while  the  wit  and  polish  of  the  fables  have 
earned  their  author  an  excessive  fame.  Iriarte  was,  in  the 


f,n 


JOVE-LLANOS  357 

best  sense,  an  "  elegant "  writer.  Unluckily  for  himself 
and  us,  much  of  his  short  life  was,  after  the  eighteenth- 
century  fashion,  wasted  in  polemics  with  able,  learned 
ruffians,  of  whom  Juan  Pablo  Forner  (1756-97)  is  the 
most  extreme  type.  Forner's  versified  attack  on  Iriarte, 
El  Asno  erudito,  is  one  of  the  most  ferocious  libels  ever 
printed.  Literary  men  the  world  over  are  famous  for 
their  manners  :  Spain  is  in  this  respect  no  better  than 
her  neighbours,  and  the  abusive  personalities  which  form 
a  great  part  of  her  literary  history  during  the  last  century 
are  now  the  driest,  most  vacant  chaff  imaginable. 

In  pleasing  contrast  with  these  irritable  mediocrities  is 
the  figure  of  CASPAR  MELCHOR  DE  JOVE-LLANOS  (1744- 
1811),  the  most  eminent  Spaniard  of  his  age.  Educated 
for  the  Church,  Jove- Llanos  turned  to  law,  was  appointed 
magistrate  at  Seville  in  his  twenty-fourth  year,  was  trans- 
ferred to  Madrid  in  1778,  became  a  member  of  the  Council 
of  Orders  in  1780,  was  exiled  to  Asturias  on  the  fall  of 
Cabarriis  in  1790,  and  seven  years  later  was  appointed 
Minister  of  Justice.  The  incarnation  of  all  that  was  best  *£ 
in  the  liberalism  of  his  time,  he  was  equally  odious  to  re- 
actionaries and  revolutionists.  A  stern  moralist,  he  strove  ' 
to  end  the  intrigue  between  the  Queen  and  the  notorious 
Godoy,  Prince  of  the  Peace,  and  at  the  latter's  instance 
was  dismissed  from  office  in  1798.  He  passed  the  years 
1801-8  a  prisoner  in  the  Balearic  Islands,  returning  to 
find  Spain  under  the  heel  of  France.  His  prose  writings, 
political,  economic,  and  didactic,  do  not  concern  us  here, 
though  their  worth  is  admitted  by  good  judges.  Jove- 
Llanos  is  most  interesting  because  of  his  own  poetic 
achievement,  and  because  of  his  influence  on  the  group 
of  Salamancan  poets.  His  play,  El  Delincuente  Honrado 
(1774),  is  a  doctrinaire  exercise  in  the  manner  of  Diderot's 


358  SPANISH   LITERATURE 


Fits  Naturel;  it  shows  considerable  knowledge  of  dramatic 
effect,  and  its  sentimental,  sincere  philanthropy  persuaded 
audiences  in  and  out  of  Spain  to  accept  Jove-Llanos  for 
a  dramatist.  At  most  he  is  a  clever  playwright.  Yet, 
though  not  an  artist  in  either  prose  or  verse,  though  far 
from  irreproachable  in  diction,  he  occasionally  utters  a 
pure  poetic  note,  keen  and  vibrating  in  satire,  noble  and 
austere  in  that  Epistle  to  the  Duque  de  Veragua,  which,  by 
common  consent,  best  reflects  the  tranquil  dignity  of  his 
temperament. 

Jove-Llanos'  official  position,  his  high  ideals,  his  know- 
ledge, discernment,  and  wise  counsel  were  placed  at  the 
service  of  JUAN  MELENDEZ  VALDES  (1754-1817),  the  chief 
poet  of  the  Salamancan  school,  who  came  under  his  influ- 
ence in  or  about  1777.  Jove-Llanos  succeeded  by  sheer 
force  of  character :  Mel6ndez  was  a  weather-cock  at  the 
mercy  of  every  breeze.  A  writer  of  erotic  verses,  he 
thought  of  taking  orders  ;  a  pastoral  poet,  he  turned  to 
philosophy  by  Jove-Llanos'  advice;  unfortunate  in  his 
marriage,  discontented  with  his  professorship  at  Sala- 
manca, he  dabbled  in  politics,  becoming,  through  his 
friend's  patronage,  a  government  official :  and  when  Jove- 
Llanos  fell,  Melendez  fell  with  him.  It  is  hard  to  decide 
whether  Melendez  was  a  rogue  or  a  weakling.  Upon 
the  French  invasion,  he  began  by  writing  verses  calling 
his  people  to  arms,  and  ended  by  taking  office  under 

,  *    the  foreign  government.    He  fawned  upon  Joseph  Bona- 
parte, whom  he  vowed  "to  love  each  day,"  and  he  hailed 
.  the  restoration  of  the  Spanish  with  patriotic  enthusiasm. 

>  Finally,  the  dishonoured  man  fled  for  very  shame  and 
safety.  Loving  iniquity  and  hating  justice,  he  died  in 
exile  at  Montpellier. 

He,  typifies  the  fluctuations  of  his  time.     His  natural 


t;^ 


MELE~NDEZ  VALDES  359 

bent  was  towards  pastoralism,  as  his  early  poems, 
modelled  on  Garcilaso  and  on  Torre,  remain  to  prove; 
he  took  to  liberalism  at  Jove-Llanos'  suggestion,  as  he 
would  have  taken  to  absolutism  had  that  been  the  craze 
of  the  moment ;  he  read  Locke,  Young,  Turgot,  and 
Condorcet  at  the  instance  of  his  friends.  "  Obra  soy  tuya  " 
("I  am  thy  handiwork"),  he  writes  to  Jove-Llanos.  He 
was  ever  the  handiwork  of  the  last  comer  :  a  shadow  of  •  ,, 
insincerity,  of  pose,  is  over  all  his  verse.  Yet,  like  his 
countryman  Lucan,  Melendez  demonstrates  the  truth 
that  a  worthless  creature  may  be,  within  limits,  a  genuine 
poet.  He  has  neither  morals  nor  ideas;  he  has  fancy, 
ductility,  clearness,  music,  charm,  and  a  picturesque 
vision  of  natural  detail  that  have  no  counterpart  in  his 
period.  Compared  with  his  brethren  of  the  Salaman  can '"55(1 
school — with  Diego  Tadeo  Gonzalez  (1733-94),  with 
Jos6  Iglesias  de  la  Casa  (1753-91),  even  with  Nicasio 
Alvarez  de  Cienfuegos  (1764-1809) — Melendez  appears 
a  veritable  giant.  He  was  not  quite  that  any  more  than 
they  were  pigmies  ;  but  he  had  a  spark  of  genius,  while 
their  faculty  was  no  more  than  talent.1 

His  one  distinct  failure  was  when  he  ventured  on  the 
boards  with  his  Wedding1  Feast  of  Camacho,  founded  on 
Cervantes'  famous  story,  though  even  here  the  pastoral 
passages  are  pleasing,  if  inappropriate.  It  is  to  his  credit 
that  his  theme  is  national,  while  his  general  dramatic  sym- 
pathies were,  like  those  of  his  associates,  French.  Luzan 
and  his  followers  found  it  easier  to  condemn  the  ancient 
masterpieces  than  to  write  masterpieces  of  their  own. 
Their  function  was  negative,  destructive  ;  yet  when  the 

1  For  two  singularly  acute  critical  studies  by  M.  E.  Merime'e  on  Jove- Llanos 
and  Melendez  Valdes,  see  the  Revue  hispanique  (Paris,  1894).  vol.  i.  pp.  34-68, 
and  pp.  217-235. 
24 


?>       C^_    LSI**-/ 
360  SPANISH  LITERATURE 


prohibition  of  az/tar  was  procured  in  1765  by  Jose 
Clavijo  y  Fajardo  (1730-1806) — whose  adventure  with 
Louise  Caron,  Beaumarchais'  sister,  gave  Goethe  a  sub- 
ject— they  hoped  to  force  a  hearing  for  themselves. 
They  overlooked  the  fact  that  there  already  existed  a 
national  dramatist  named  RAM6N  DE  LA  CRUZ  Y  CAXO 
(1731-?  95),  who  had  the  merit  of  inventing  a  new 
genre,  which,  being  racy  of  the  soil,  was  to  the  popular 
taste.  Convention  had  settled  it  that  tragedies  should 
present  the  misfortunes  of  emperors  and  dukes ;  that 
comedies  should  deal  with  the  middle  class,  their  senti- 
mentalities and  foibles.  Cruz,  a  government  clerk,  with 
sufficient  leisure  to  compose  three  hundred  odd  plays, 
f  became  in  some  sort  the  dramatist  of  the  needy,  the 
/  A  .  disinherited,  the  have-nots  of  the  street.  He  might 
•  very  well  sympathise  with  them,  for  he  was  always 
v  pinched  for  money,  and  died  so  destitute  that  his 
widow  had  not  wherewith  to  bury  him.  Beginning, 
like  the  rest  of  the  world,  with  French  imitations  and 
renderings,  he  turned  to  representing  the  life  about  him 
in  short  farcical  pieces  called  sainetes — a  perfect  develop- 
ment of  the  oldpasos.  In  the  prologue  to  the  ten-volume 
edition  of  his  sainetes  (1786-91),  Cruz  proclaims  his  own 
merit  in  a  just  and  striking  phrase — "  I  write,  and  truth 
dictates  to  me."  His  gaiety,  his  picaresque  enjoyment, 
his  exuberant  humour,  his  jokes  and  puns  and  quips, 
lend  an  extraordinary  vivacity  to  his  presentation  of  the 
most  trifling  incidents.  He  might  have  been — as  he 
began  by  being — a  pompous  prig  and  bore,  preaching 
high  doctrine,  and  uttering  the  platitudes,  which  alone 
were  thought  worthy  of  the  sock  and  buskin.  He  chose 
the  better  part  in  rendering  what  he  knew  and  under- 
stood and  saw,  in  amusing  his  public  for  thirty  years, 


THE  YOUNGER  MORATlN  361 

and  in  bequeathing  a  thousand  occasions  of  laughter 
to  the  world.  He  wrote  with  a  reckless,  contagious 
humour,  with  a  comic  brio  which  anticipates  Labiche  ; 
and,  unambitious  and  light-hearted  as  Cruz  was,  we  may 
learn  more  of  contemporary  life  from  El  Prado  por  la 
Noche  and  Las  Tertulias  de  Madrid  than  from  a  moun- 
tain of  serious  records  and  chronicles. 

In  the  following  generation  LEANDRO  FERNANDEZ  DE 
MORATIN  (1760-1828)  won  deserved  repute  as  a  play- 
wright. His  father,  the  author  of  Hormesinda,  made  a 
jeweller's  apprentice  of  the  boy  who,  in  1779  and  1782, 
won  two  accesits  from  the  Academy.  He  thus  attracted 
the  notice  of  Jove-Llanos,  who  secured  his  appointment 
as  Secretary  to  the  Paris  Embassy  in  1787.  His  stay  in 
France,  followed  by  later  travels  through  England,  the 
Low  Countries,  Germany,  and  Italy,  completed  his  educa- 
tion, and  obtained  for  him  the  post  of  official  translator. 
His  exercises  in  verse  are  more  admirable  than  his  prose 
version  of  Hamlet,  which  offended  his  academic  theories 
in  every  scene.  Moliere,  who  wras  his  ideal,  has  no  more 
faithful  follower  than  the  younger  Moratfn.  His  transla- 
tions of  LEcole  des  Maris  and  Le  Medecin  malgre"  lui 
belong  to  his  later  years ;  but  his  theatre,  including 
those  most  striking  pieces  El  Si  de  las  Ninas  (The 
Maids'  Consent)  and  La  Mojigata  (The  Hypocritical 
Woman),  reflects  the  master's  humour  and  observa- 
tion. The  latter  comedy  (1804)  brought  him  into 
trouble  with  the  Inquisition  ;  the  former  (1806)  estab- 
lished his  fame  by  its  character-drawing,  its  grace- 
ful ingenuity,  and  witty  dialogue.  His  fortunes,  which 
seemed  assured,  were  wrecked  by  the  French  war. 
Moratfn  was  always  timid,  even  in  literary  combats :  he 
now  proved  himself  that  very  rare  thing  among  Spaniards 


362  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

— a  physical  coward.  He  neither  dared  declare  for  his 
country  nor  against  it,  and  went  into  hiding  at  Vitoria. 
He  finally  accepted  the  post  of  Royal  Librarian  to 
Joseph  Bonaparte,  and  when  the  crash  came  he  de- 
camped to  Peniscola.  These  events  turned  his  brain. 
All  efforts  to  help  him  (and  they  were  many)  proved 
useless.  He  wandered  as  far  as  Italy  to  escape  imagi- 
nary assassins,  and  finally  settled  in  Bordeaux,  where 
he  believed  himself  safe  from  the  conspirators.  El  Si 
de  las  Ninas  is  an  excellent  piece  among  the  best,  and 
is  sufficient  to  persuade  the  most  difficult  reader  that 
Leandro  Moratfn  was  one  of  nature's  wasted  forces. 
He  must  have  won  distinction  in  any  company :  in  this 
dreary  period  he  achieves  real  eminence. 

No  prose-writer  of  the  time  rises  to  Isla's  level.  His 
brother  Jesuit,  Lorenzo  Hervds  y  Panduro  (1735-1809), 
is  credited  by  Professor  Max  Miiller  with  "one  of  the 
most  brilliant  discoveries  in  the  history  of  the  science 
of  language,"  and  may  be  held  for  the  father  of  com- 
parative philology  ;  but  his  specimens  and  notices  of 
three  hundred  tongues,  his  grammars  of  forty  languages, 
his  classic  Catdlogo  de  las  lenguas  de  las  naciones  conocidas 
(1800-5)  appeal  more  to  the  specialist  than  to  the  lover 
of  literature.  Yet  in  his  own  department  there  is 
scarcely  a  more  splendid  name. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

INTELLECTUAL  interaction  between  Spain  and  France  is 
an  inevitable  outcome  of  geographical  position.  To  the 
one  or  to  the  other  must  belong  the  headship  of  the  Latin 
races ;  for  Portugal  is,  so  to  say,  but  a  prolongation  of 
Galicia,  while  the  unity  of  Italy  dates  from  yesterday. 
This  hegemony  was  long  contested.  During  a  century 
and  a  half,  fortune  declared  for  Spain  :  the  balance  is  now 
redressed  in  France's  favour.  The  War  of  the  Succes- 
sion, the  invasion  of  1808,  the  expedition  of  1823,  the  con- 
trivance of  the  Spanish  marriages  show  that  Louis  XIV., 
Napoleon  I.,  Charles  X.,  and  Louis-Philippe  dared  risk 
their  kingdoms  rather  than  loosen  their  grip  on  Spain. 
More  recent  examples  are  not  lacking.  The  primary 
occasion  of  the  Franco-German  War  in  1870-71  was  the 
proposal  to  place  a  Hohenzollern  on  the  Spanish  throne, 
and  the  Parisian  outburst  against  "  Alfonso  the  Uhlan  " 
was  an  expression  of  resentment  against  a  Spanish  King 
who  chafed  under  French  tutelage.  Since  there  is  no 
ground  for  believing  that  France  will  renounce  a  tradi- 
tional diplomacy  maintained,  under  all  forms  of  govern- 
ment, for  over  two  centuries,  it  is  not  rash  to  assume 
that  in  the  future,  as  in  the  past,  intellectual  development 
will  tend  to  coincide  with  political  influence.  French 
literary  fashions  affect  all  Europe  more  or  less:  they 

affect  Spain  more. 

363 


364  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

It  is  a  striking  fact  that  the  great  national  poet  of  the 
War  of  Independence  should  be  indisputably  French  in 
.-;  all  but  patriotic  sentiment.  MANUEL  Jos£  QUINTANA 
(1772-1857)  was  an  offshoot  of  the  Salamancan  school, 
a  friend  of  Jove-Llanos  and  of  Melendez  Valdes,  a  fol- 
lower of  Raynal  and  Turgot  and  Condorcet,  a  "  philo- 
sopher" of  the  eighteenth-century  model.  Too  much 
stress  has,  perhaps,  been  laid  on  his  French  construc- 
tions, his  acceptance  of  neologisms :  a  more  radical  fault 
is  his  incapacity  for  ideas.  Had  he  died  at  forty  his 
fame  would  be  even  greater  than  it  is ;  for  in  his  last 
years  he  did  nothing  but  repeat  the  echoes  of  his  youth. 
At  eighty  he  was  still  perorating  on  the  rights  of  man,  as 
though  the  world  were  a  huge  Jacobin  Convention,  as 
though  he  had  learned  and  forgotten  nothing  during 
half  a  century  He  died,  as  he  had  lived,  convinced 
that  a  few  changes  of  political  machinery  would  ensure 
a  perpetual  Golden  Age.  It  is  not  for  his  Duque  de 
Viseo,  a  tragedy  based  on  M.  G.  Lewis's  Castle  Spectre, 
nor  by  his  Ode  to  Juan  de  Padilla,  that  Quintana  is  re- 
membered. The  partisan  of  French  ideas  lives  by  his 
Call  to  Arms  against  the  French,  by  his  patriotic  cam- 
paign against  the  invaders,  by  his  prose  biographies  of 
the  Cid,  the  Great  Captain,  Pizarro,  and  other  Spaniards 
of  the  ancient  time.  We  might  suspect,  if  we  did  not 
know,  Quintana's  habit  of  writing  his  first  rough  drafts 
in  prose,  and  of  translating  these  into  verse.  Though 
he  proclaimed  himself  a  pupil  of  Melendez,  nature  and 
love  are  not  his  true  themes,  and  his  versification  is 
curiously  unequal.  Patriotism,  politics,  philanthropy 
are  his  inspirations,  and  these  find  utterance  in  the  lofty 
rhetoric  of  such  pieces  as  his  Ode  to  Guzman  the  Good 
and  the  Ode  on  the  Invention  of  Printing.  Unequal,  un- 


QUINTANA:  GALLEGO  365 

restrained,  never  exquisite,  never  completely  admirable 
for  more  than  a  few  lines  at  a  time,  Quintana's  pas- 
sionate pride  of  patriotism,  his  virile  temperament,  his 
individual  gift  of  martial  music  have  enabled  him  to 
express  with  unsurpassed  fidelity  one  very  conspicuous 
aspect  of  his  people's  genius. 

Another  patriotic  singer  is  the  priest,  JUAN  NlCASlO 
GALLEGO  (1777-1853),  who,  like  many  political  liberals,'? 
was  so  staunchly  conservative  in  literature  that  he  con- 
demned Notre  Dame  de  Paris  in  the  very  spirit  of  an 
alarmed  Academician.  Slight  as  is  the  bulk  of  his  writ- 
ings, Gallego's  high  place  is  ensured  by  his  combination 
of  extreme  finish  with  extreme  sincerity.  His  elegy  On 
the  Death  of  the  Duquesa  de  Frias  is  tremulous  with  the 
accent  of  profound  emotion  ;  but  he  is  even  better  known 
by  El  Dos  de  Mayo,  which  celebrates  the  historic  rising 
of  the  second  of  May,  when  the  artillerymen,  Jacinto 
Ruiz,  Luis  Daoiz,  and  Pedro  Velarte,  "by  their  refusal 
to  surrender  their  three  guns  and  ten  cartridges  to  the 
French  army,  gave  the  signal  for  the  general  rising  of 
the  Spanish  nation.  His  ode  A  la  defensa  de  Buenos  Aires, 
against  the  English,  is  no  less  distinguished  for  its  heroic 
spirit.  There  is  a  touch  of  irony  in  the  fact  that  Gallego 
should  be  best  represented  by  his  denunciation  of  the 
French,  whom  he  adored,  and  by  his  denunciation  of  the 
British,  who  were  to  assist  in  freeing  his  country. 

Time  has  misused  the  work  of  FRANCISCO  MARTINEZ 
DE  LA  ROSA  (1788-1862)  who  at  one  time  was  held  by  / 
Europe  as  the  literary  representative  of  Spain.  No  small 
part  of  his  fame  was  due  to  his  prominent  position  in 
Spanish  politics ;  but  the  disdainful  neglect  which  has 
overtaken  him  is  altogether  unmerited.  Not  being  an 
original  genius,  his  lyrics  are  but  variations  of  earlier 


'  366  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

melodies  :  thus  the  Ausencia  de  la  patria  is  a  metrical 
exercise  in  Jorge  Manrique's  manner ;  the  song  which 
commemorates  the  defence  of  Zaragoza  is  inspired  by 
Quintana  ;  the  elegy  On  the  Death  of  the  Duquesa  de  Frias, 
far  short  of  Gallego's  in  pathos  and  dignity,  is  redolent 
of  Melendez.  His  novel,  Doila  Isabel  de  So/is,  is  an 
artless  imitation  of  Sir  Walter  Scott ;  nor  are  his  de- 
clamatory tragedies,  La  Viuda  de  Padilla  and  Moraima, 
of  perdurable  value  any  more  than  his  Moratinian  plays, 
such  as  Los  Celos  Infundados.  Martinez  de  la  Rosa's 
exile  passed  in  Paris  led  him  to  write  the  two  pieces 
by  which  he  is  remembered :  his  Conjuracion  de  Venecia 
(1834),  and  his  Aben-Humeya  (the  latter  first  written 
f  --in  French,  and  first  played  at  the  Porte  Saint-Martin 
ijr  in  1830)  denote  the  earliest  entry  into  Spain  of  French 
romanticism,  and  are  therefore  of  real  historic  import- 
ance. Fate  was  rarely  more  freakish  than  in  placing 
this  modest,  timorous  man  at  the  head  of  a  new  lite- 
rary movement.  Still  stranger  it  is  that  his  two  late 
romantic  experiments  should  be  the  best  of  his  manifold 
work. 

But  he  was  not  fitted  to  maintain  the  leadership  which 
circumstances  had  allotted  to  him,  and  romanticism  found 
a  more  popular  expi  tent  in  Angel  de  Saavedra,  DUQUE 
V  DE  RIVAS  (i79i-i865),|"he  very  type  of  the  radical  noble. 
His  exile  in  France  and  in  England  converted  him  from 
a  follower  of  Melendez  and  Quintana  to  a  sectary  of 
Chateaubriand  and  Byron.  His  first  essays  in  the  new 
vein  were  an  admirable  lyric,  Al  faro  de  Malta,  and  El 
Moro  expdsito,  a  narrative  poem  undertaken  by  the  advice 
of  John  Hookham  Frere.  Brilliant  passages  of  poetic  dic- 
tion, the  semi-epical  presentation  of  picturesque  national 
legends,  are  Rivas'  contribution  to  the  new  school.  He 


RIVAS:   BLANCO  367 

went  still  further  in  his  famous  play,  Don  Alvaro  (1835), 
an  event  in  the  history  of  the  modern  Spanish  drama 
corresponding  to  the  production  of  Hcrnani  at  the 
Theatre  Fran§ais.  The  characters  of  Alvaro,  of  Leonor, 
and  of  her  brother  Alfonso  Vargas  are,  if  not  inhuman,  all 
but  titanic,  and  the  speeches  are  of  such  magniloquence 
as  man  never  spoke.  But  for  the  Spaniards  of  the  third 
decade,  Rivas  was  the  standard-bearer  of  revolt,  and  :  f 
Don  Alvaro,  by  its  contempt  for  the  unities,  by  its 
alternation  of  prose  with  lyrism,  by  its  amalgam  of  the 
grandiose,  the  comic,  the  sublime,  and  the  horrible,  en- 
chanted a  generation  of  Spanish  play-goers  surfeited 
with  the  academic  drama. 

To  English  readers  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  essay,  the  Canon  ,/,  ' 
of  Seville,  Jos£  MARIA  BLANCO  (1775-1841),  is  familiar  by 
the  alias  of  Blanco  White.  It  were  irrelevant  to  record 
here  the  lamentable  story  of  Blanco's  private  life,  or  to 
follow  his  religious  transformations  from  Catholicism  to 
Unitarianism.  A  sufficient  idea  of  his  poetic  gifts  is 
afforded  by  an  English  quatorzain  which  has  found 
favour  with  many  critics  : — 

"  Mysterious  light !     When  our  first  parent  knew 
Thee,  from  report  divine,  and  heard  thy  name, 
Did  he  not  tremble  for  this  lovely  frame, 
This  glorious  canopy  of  light  and  blue  ? 
Yet  'neath  a  curtain  of  translucent  dew 
Bathed  in  the  rays  of  the  great  setting  flame, 
Hesperus,  with  the  host  of  heaven,  came, 
And  lo !  Creation  -widened in  man's  view. 

Who  could  have  thought  such  darkness  lay  concealed 

Within  thy  beams,  O  Sun  f  or  who  could  find, 
Whilst  fly,  and  leaf,  and  insect  stood  revealed, 

That  to  such  countless  orbs  thou  madest  us  blind? 
Why  do  we  then  shun  death  with  anxious  strife? 
If  light  can  thus  deceive,  wherefore  not  life?  " 


368  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

This  is  as  characteristic  as  his  Oda  d  Carlos  III.  or  the 
remorseful  Castilian  lines  on  Resigned  Desire,  penned 
within  a  year  of  his  death.  A  very  similar  talent  was 
that  of  Blanco's  friend,  ALBERTO  LISTA  (1775-1848), 
also  a  Canon  of  Seville  Cathedral,  a  most  accomplished 
singer,  whose  golden  purity  of  tone  compensates  for  a 
deficient  volume  of  voice  and  an  affected  method.  But, 
save  for  such  a  fragment  of  impassioned,  plangent 
melody  as  the  poem  A  la  Muerte  de  Jesus,  Lista  is  less 
known  as  a  poet  than  as  a  teacher  of  remarkable  in- 
fluence.  His  Lecciones  de  Literatura  Espaiiola  did  for 
Spain  what  Lamb's  Specimens  of  English  Dramatic  Poets 
did  for  England,  and  his  personal  authority  over  some 
of  the  best  minds  of  his  age  was  almost  as  complete  in 
scope  as  it  was  gentle  in  exercise  and  excellent  in  effect. 

The  most  famous  of  his  pupils  was  Josfi  DE  ESPRON- 
CEDA (1810-42),  who  came  under  Lista  at  the  Colegio 
de  San  Mateo,  in  Madrid,  where  the  boy,  who  was  in 
perpetual  scrapes  through  idleness  and  general  bad  con- 
duct, attracted  the  rector's  notice  by  his  extraordinary 
poetic  precocity.  Through  good  and  evil  report  Lista 
held  by  Espronceda  to  the  last,  and  was  perhaps  the 
one  person  who  ever  persuaded  him  from  a  rash  pur- 
pose. At  fourteen  Espronceda  joined  a  secret  society 
called  Los  Numantinos,  which  was  supposed  to  work  for 
liberty,  equality,  and  the  rest.  The  young  Numantine 
was  deported  to  a  monastery  in  Guadalajara,  where,  on 
the  advice  of  Lista  (who  himself  contributed  some  forty 
octaves),  he  began  his  epical  essay,  El  Pelayo.  Like 
most  other  boys  who  have  begun  epics,  Espronceda  left 
his  unfinished,  and,  though  the  stanzas  that  remain  are 
of  a  fine  but  unequal  quality,  they  in  no  way  foreshadow 
the  chief  of  the  romantic  school. 


ESPRONCEDA  369 

Returning  to  Madrid,  Espronceda  was  soon  con- 
cerned in  more  conspiracies,  and  escaped  to  Gibraltar, 
whence  he  passed  to  Lisbon.  A  suggestion  of  the 
Byronic  pose  is  found  in  the  story  (of  his  own  telling) 
that,  before  landing,  he  threw  away  his  last  two  pesetas, 
"  not  wishing  to  enter  so  great  a  town  with  so  little 
money."  In  Lisbon  he  met  with  that  Teresa  who  figures 
so  prominently  in  his  life  ;  but  the  Government  was 
once  more  on  his  track,  and  he  fled  to  London,  where 
Byron's  poems  came  upon  him  with  the  force  of  a 
revelation.  In  England  he  found  Teresa,  now  married, 
and  eloped  with  her  to  Paris,  where,  on  the  three 
"glorious  days"  of  July  1830,  he  fought  behind  the 
barricades.  The  overthrow  of  Charles  X.  put  such  heart 
into  the  Spanish  emigrados  that,  under  the  leadership 
of  the  once  famous  Chapalangarra — Joaqufn  de  Pablo — 
they  determined  to  raise  all  Spain  against  the  monarchy. 
The  attempt  failed,  Chapalangarra  was  killed  in  Navarre, 
and  Espronceda  did  not  return  to  Spain  till  the  amnesty 
of  1833.  He  obtained  a  commission  in  the  royal  body- 
guard, and  seemed  on  the  road  to  fortune,  when  he  was 
cashiered  because  of  certain  verses  read  by  him  at  a 
political  banquet.  He  turned  to  journalism,  incited  the 
people  to  insurrection  by  articles  and  speeches,  held  the 
streets  against  the  regular  army  in  1835-36,  shared  in  the 
liberal  triumph  of  1840,  and,  on  the  morrow  of  the  suc- 
cessful revolution  which  he  had  organised,  pronounced 
in  favour  of  a  republic.  He  was  appointed  Secretary 
to  the  Embassy  at  the  Hague  in  1841,  returning  to 
Spain  shortly  afterwards  on  his  election  as  deputy  for 
Almerfa.  He  died  after  four  days  of  illness  on  May  23, 
1842,  in  his  thirty-third  year,  exhausted  by  his  stormy 
life.  A  most  formidable  journalist,  a  demagogue  of  con- 


370  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

summate  address,  a  man-at-arms  who  had  rather  fight 
than  not,  Espronceda  might  have  cut  out  for  himself  a 
new  career  in  politics — or  might  have  died  upon  the 
scaffold  or  at  the  barricades.  But,  so  far  as  concerns 
poetry,  his  work  was  done:  an  aged  Espronceda  is 
as  inconceivable  as  an  elderly  Byron,  a  venerable 
Shelley. 

Byron  was  the  paramount  influence  of  Espronceda's 
life  and  works.  The  Conde  de  Toreno,  a  caustic  poli- 
tician and  man  of  letters,  who  was  once  asked  if  he  had 
read  Espronceda,  replied  :  "  Not  much  ;  but  then  I  have 
read  all  Byron."  The  taunt  earned  Toreno — "insolent 
fool  with  heart  of  slime  " — a  terrific  invective  in  the  first 
canto  of  El  Diablo  Mundo : — 

"  A I  necio  audaz  de  corazdn  de  cieno, 
A  quien  Human  el  Conde  de  Toreno." 

The  gibe  was  ill-natured,  but  Espronceda's  resentment 
goes  to  show  that  he  felt  its  plausibility.  If  Toreno  meant 
that  Espronceda,  like  Heine,  Musset,  Leopardi,  and  Push- 
kin, took  Byron  for  a  model,  he  spoke  the  humble  truth. 
Like  Byron,  Espronceda  became  the  centre  of  a  legend, 
and — so  to  say — he  made  up  for  the  part.  He  advertised 
his  criminal  repute  with  manifest  gusto,  and  gave  the 
world  his  own  portrait  in  the  shape  of  pale,  gloomy, 
splendid  heroes.  Don  Felix  de  Montemar,  in  El  Estu- 
diante  de  Salamanca,  is  Don  Juan  Tenorio  in  a  new 
environment  —  "fierce,  insolent,  irreligious,  gallant, 
haughty,  quarrelsome,  insult  in  his  glance,  irony  on  his 
lips,  fearing  naught,  trusting  solely  to  his  sword  and 
courage."  Again,  in  the  famous  declamatory  address 
To  Jarifa,  there  is  the  same  disillusioned  view  of  life,  the 
same  lust  for  impossible  pleasures,  the  same  picturesque 


ESPRONCEDA  371 

mingling  of  misanthropy  and  aspiration.  Once  more, 
the  Fabio  of  the  fragmentary  Diablo  Mundo  is  replen- 
ished with  the  Byronic  spirit  of  defiant  pessimism,  the 
Byronic  intention  of  epical  mockery.  And  so  through- 
out all  his  pieces  the  protagonist  is  always,  and  in  all 
ess-jntials,  Jose  de  Espronceda. 

Whether  any  writer — or,  at  all  events,  any  but  the 
very  greatest — has  ever  succeeded  completely  .in  shed- 
ding his  own  personality  is  doubtful.  Espronceda,  at 
least,  never  attempted  it,  and  consequently  his  dramatic 
pieces — Dofia  Blanco,  de  Borbon,  for  example — were  fore- 
doomed to  fail.  But  this  very  force  of  temperament, 
this  very  element  of  artistic  egotism,  lends  life  and 
colour  to  his  songs.  The  Diablo  Mundo,  the  Estudiante 
de  Salamanca,  ostensibly  formed  upon  the  models  of 
Goethe,  and  Byron,  and  Tirso  de  Molina,  are  utterances, 
of  individual  impressions,  detached  lyrics  held  together 
by  the  merest  thread.  Scarcely  a  typical  Spaniard  in 
life  or  in  art,  Espronceda  is,  beyond  all  question,  the 
most  distinguished  Spanish  lyrical  poet  of  the  century. 
His  abandonment,  his  attitude  of  revolt,  his  love  of 
love  and  licence  —  one  might  even  say  his  turn  for 
debauchery  and  anarchy  —  are  the  notes  of  an  epoch 
rather  than  the  characteristics  of  a  country ;  and,  in 
so  much,  he  is  cosmopolitan  rather  than  national. 
But  the  merciless  observation  of  El  Verdugo  (The 
Executioner),  the  idealised  conception  of  Elvira  in  El 
Estudiante  de  Salamanca,  are  strictly  representative  of 
Quevedo's  and  of  Calderdn's  tradition;  while  his  arti-^ 
ficial  but  sympathetic  rhetoric,  his  resonant  music,  his; 
brilliant  imagery,  his  uncalculating  vehemence,  bear, 
upon  them  the  stamp  of  all  his  race's  faults  and  virtues. 
In  this  sense  he  speaks  for  Spain,  and  Spain  repays  him 


372  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

by  ranking  him  as  the  most  inspired,  if  the  most  unequal, 
of  her  modern  singers. 

Pf  His  contemporary,  the  Catalan,  MANUEL  DE  CABANYES 
(1808-1833),  died  too  young  to  reveal  the  full  measure  of 
his  powers,  and  his  Preludios  de  mi  lira  (1833),  though 
warmly  praised  by  Torres  Amat,  Joaquin  Roca  y  Cornet, 
and  other  critics  of  insight,  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have 
won  appreciation.  Cabanyes  is  essentially  a  poet's  poet, 
inspired  mainly  by  Luis  de  Leon.  His  felicities  are  those 
of  the  accomplished  student,  the  expert  in  technicalities, 
the  almost  impeccable  artist  whose  hendecasyllabics,  A 
Cintio,  rival  those  of  Leopardi  in  their  perfect  form  and 
intense  pessimism ;  but  as  his  life  was  too  brief,  so  his 
production  is  too"  frugal  and  too  exquisite  for  the  general, 
and  he  is  rated  by  his  promise  rather  than  by  his  actual 
achievement.  Mild  y  Fontanals  and  Sr.  Menendez  y 
Pelayo  have  striven  to  spread  Cabanyes'  good  report, 
and  they  have  so  far  succeeded  that  his  genius  is  now 
admitted  on  all  hands  ;  but  his  chill  perfection  makes  no 
appeal  to  the  mass  of  his  countrymen. 

Espronceda's  direct  successor  was  JOSE  ZORRILLA 
(1817-1893),  whose  life's  story  may  be  read  in  his  own 
Recuerdos  del  tiempo  viejo  (Old-time  Memories).  It  was 
his  misfortune  to  be  concerned  in  politics,  for  which  he 
was  unfitted,  and  to  be  pinched  by  continuous  poverty, 
which  drove  him  in  1855  to  seek  his  fortune  in  Mexico, 
whence  he  returned  empty-handed  in  1866.  His  closing 
years  were  somewhat  happier,  inasmuch  as  a  pension  of 
30,000  reales,  obtained  at  last  by  strenuous  parliamentary 
effort,  freed  him  from  the  pressure  of  actual  want. 
It  may  be  that  it  came  too  late,  and  that  Zorrilla's  work 
suffers  from  his  straitened  circumstances  ;  but  this  is  diffi- 
cult to  believe.  He  might  have  produced  less,  might  have 


ZORRILLA  373 

escaped  the  hopeless  hack-work  to  which  he  was  com- 
pelled ;  but  a  finished  artist  he  could  never  have  become, 
for,  by  instinct  as  by  preference,  he  was  an  improvisatore. 
The  tale  that  (like  Arthur  Pendennis)  he  wrote  verses  to 
fit  engravings  is  possibly  an  invention  ;  but  the  inventor 
at  least  knew  his  man,  for  nothing  is  more  intrinsically 
probable.  £^v*x£-»^  m-., 

His  carelessness,  his  haste,  his  defective  execution  are 
superficial  faults  which  must  always  injure  Zorrilla  in 
the  esteem  of  foreign  critics ;  yet  it  is  certain  that  the 
charm  which  he  has  exercised  over  three  generations  of 
Spaniards,  and  which  seems  likely  to  endure,  implies  the 
possession  of  considerable  powers.  And  Zorrilla  had 
three  essential  qualities  in  no  common  degree  :  national 
spirit,  dramatic  insight,  and  lyrical  spontaneity.  He  is 
an  inferior  Sir  Walter,  with  an  added  knowledge  of  the 
theatre,  to  which  Scott  made  no  pretence.  His  Leyenda 
de  Alkamar,  his  Granada,  his  Leyenda  del  Cid  were  popu- 
lar for  the  same  reason  that  Marmion  and  the  Lady  of  the 
Lake  were  popular  :  for  their  revival  of  national  legends 
in  a  form  both  simple  and  picturesque.  The  fate  that 
overcame  Sir  Walter's  poems  seems  to  threaten  Zorrilla's. 
Both  are  read  for  the  sake  of  the  subject,  for  the  brilliant 
colouring  of  episodes,  more  than  for  the  beauty  of  treat- 
ment, construction,  and  form ;  yet,  as  Sir  Walter  sur- 
vives in  his  novels,  Zorrilla  will  endure  in  such  of  his 
plays  as  Don  Juan  Tenorio,  in  El  Zapatero  y  el  Rey,  and 
in  Traidor,  inconfeso,  y  mdrtir.  His  selection  of  native 
themes,  his  vigorous  appeal  to  those  primitive  sentiments 
which  are  at  least  as  strong  in  Spain  as  elsewhere — • 
courage,  patriotism,  religion — have  ensured  him  a  vogue 
so  wide  and  lasting  that  it  almost  approaches  immor- 
tality. In  the  study  Zorrilla's  slap-dash  methods  are 


374  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

often  wearisome ;  on  the  stage  his  impetuousness,  his 
geniality,  his  broad  effects,  and  his  natural  lyrism  make 
him  a  veritable  force.  Two  of  Zorrilla's  rivals  among 
contemporary  dramatists  may  be  mentioned  :  ANTONIO 
GARCIA  GUTIERREZ  (1813-1884),  the  author  of  El  Tro- 
vador,  and  JUAN  EUGENIC  HARTZENBUSCH  (1806-1880), 
whose  Amantes  de  Teruel  broke  the  hearts  of  senti- 
mental ladies  in  the  forties.  Both  the  Trovador  and 
the  Amantes  are  still  reproduced,  still  read,  and  still 
praised  by  critics  who  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  memory 
and  association  ;  but  a  detached  foreigner,  though  he 
take  his  life  in  his  hand  when  he  ventures  on  the  con- 
fession, is  inclined  to  associate  Garcfa  Gutierrez  and 
Hartzenbusch  with  Sheridan  Knowles  and  Lytton. 

A  much  superior  talent  is  that  of  the  ex-soldier, 
MANUEL  BRETON  DE  LOS  HERREROS  (1796-1873),  whose 
humour  and  fancy  are  his  own,  while  his  system  is  that 
of  the  younger  Moratin.  His  Escuela  del  Matrimonio  is 
the  most  ambitious,  as  it  is  the  best,  of  those  innumer- 
able pieces  in  which  he  aims  at  presenting  a  picture  of 
average  society,  relieved  by  alternate  touches  of  ironic 
and  didactic  purpose.  Bret6n  de  los  Herreros  wrote  far 
too  much,  and  weakens  his  effects  by  the  obtrusion  of 
a  flagrant  moral ;  but  even  if  we  convict  him  as  a  cari- 
caturist of  obvious  Philistinism,  there  is  abundant  re- 
compense in  the  jovial  wit  and  graceful  versification  of 
his  quips.  To  him  succeeds  Tomas  Rodriguez  Rubi 
(1817-1890),  who  aimed  at  amusing  a  facile  public  in 
such  a  trifle  as  El  Tejado  de  Vidrio  (The  Glass  Roof),  or 
at  satirising  political  and  social  intriguers  in  La  Rueda 
de  Fortuna  (Fortune's  Wheel). 

j,^.    A  Cuban  like  GERTRUDIS  GO"MEZ  DE  AVELLANEDA  (1816- 
1873),  who  spent  most  of  her  life  in  ^pain,  may  for  our 


LOPEZ  DE  AYALA  375 

purposes  be  accounted  a  Spanish  writer.  The  proverbial 
gallantry  of  the  nation  and  the  sex  of  the  writer  account 
for  her  vogue  and  her  repute.  If  such  a  novel  as  Sab, 
with  its  protest  against  slavery  and  its  idealised  presenta- 
tion of  subject  races,  be  held  for  literature,  then  \ve  must 
so  enlarge  the  scope  of  the  word  as  to  include  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin.  Another  novel,  Espatolino,  reproduces 
George  Sand's  philippics  against  the  injustice  of  social 
arrangements,  and  re-echoes  her  lyrical  advocacy  of 
freedom  in  the  matter  of  marriage.  The  Sra.  Ave- 
llaneda  is  too  passionate  to  be  dexterous,  and  too 
preoccupied  to  be  impressive  ;  hence  her  novels  have 
fallen  out  of  sight.  That  she  had  real  gifts  of  fancy  and 
melody  is  shown  by  her  early  volume  of  poems  (1841), 
and  by  her  two  plays,  Alfonso  Munio  and  Baltasar ;  yet, 
on  the  boards  as  in  her  stories,  she  is  inopportune, 
or,  in  plainer  words,  is  a  gifted  imitator,  following  the 
changes  of  popular  taste  with  some  hesitation,  though 
with  a  gracefulness  not  devoid  of  charm.  With  her  may 
be  mentioned  Carolina  Coronado  (b.  1823),  a  refined 
poetess  with  mystic  tendencies,  whose  vogue  has  so 
diminished  that  to  the  most  of  Spaniards  she  is  scarcely 
more  than  an  agreeable  reminiscence. 

It  is  possible  that  the  adroit  politician,  ADELARDO  LOPEZ 
DE  AYALA  (1828-1879),  who  passed  from  one  party  to 
another,  and  served  a  monarch  or  a  republic  with  equal 
suppleness,  might  have  won  enduring  fame  as  a  drama- 
tist and  poet  had  he  been  less  concerned  with  doctrines 
and  theses.  He  was  so  intent  on  persuasion,  so  mindful  of 
the  arts  of  his  old  trade,  so  anxious  to  catch  a  vote,  that 
he  rarely  troubled  to  draw  character,  contenting  himself 
with  skilful  construction  of  plot  and  arrangement  of 

incident.      His    Tanto  por   Ciento   and   his  Consuelo  are 
25 


376  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

astute  harangues  in  favour  of  high  public  and  private 
morals,  composed  with  extraordinary  care  and  laudable 
purpose.  If  mere  cleverness,  a  scrupulous  eye  to  detail, 
a  fine  ear  for  sonorous  verse  could  make  a  man  master 
of  the  scene,  L6pez  de  Ayala  might  stand  beside  the 
greatest.  His  personages,  however,  are  rather  general 
types  than  individual  characters,  and  the  persistent  sar- 
casm with  which  he  ekes  out  a  moral  degenerates  into 
ponderous  banter.  None  the  less  he  was  a  force  during 
many  years,  and,  though  his  reputation  be  now  some- 
what tarnished,  he  still  counts  admirers  among  the 
middle-aged. 

A  very  conspicuous  figure  on  the  Spanish  scene  during 
the  middle  third  of  the  century  was  MANUEL  TAMAYO  Y 
BAUS  (1829-1898),  who,  beginning  with  an  imitation  of 
Schiller  in  Juana  de  Arco  (1847),  passed  under  the  in- 
fluence of  Alfieri  in  Virginia  (1853),  venturing  upon  the 
national  classic  drama  in  La  Locura  de  Amor  (1855),  the 
most  notable  achievement  of  his  early  period.  The  most 
ambitious,  and  unquestionably  the  best,  of  his  plays  is 
Un  drama  nuevo  (1867),  with  which  his  career  practically 
closed.  He  effaced  himself,  was  content  to  live  on  his 
reputation  and  to  yield  his  place  as  a  popular  favourite 
to  so  poor  a  playwright  as  Jose  Echegaray.  Compared 
with  his  successor,  Tamayo  shines  as  a  veritable  genius. 
Sprung  from  a  family  of  actors,  he  gauged  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  theatre  with  greater  exactness  than  any 
rival,  and  by  his  tact  he  became  an  expert  in  staging  a 
situation.  But  it  was  not  merely  to  inspired  mechanical 
dexterity  that  he  owed  the  high  position  which  was 
allowed  him  by  so  shrewd  a  judge  as  Manuel  de  la 
Revilla  :  to  his  unequalled  knowledge  of  the  scene  he 
joined  the  forces  of  passion  and  sympathy,  the  power  of 


SELGAS:    B^CQUER  377 

dramatic  creation,  and  a  metrical  ingenuity  which  en- 
chanted and  bewildered  those  who  heard  and  those  who 
read  him.  ^Ic-t 

There  is  a  feminine,  if  not  a  falsetto  timbre  in  the 
voice  of  JOSE  SELGAS  Y  CARRASCO  (1824-1882),  a  writer 
on  the  staff  of  the  fighting  journal,  El  Padre  Cobos,  and 
a  government  clerk  till  Martinez  Campos  transfigured 
him  into  a  Cabinet  Minister.  Selgas'  verse  in  the  Prima- 
vera  is  so  charged  with  the  conventional  sentiment  and 
with  the  amiable  pessimism  dear  to  ordinary  readers, 
that  his  popularity  was  inevitable.  Yet  even  Spanish 
indulgence  has  stopped  short  of  proclaiming  him  a  great 
poet,  and  now  that  his  day  has  gone  by,  he  is  almost  as 
unjustly  decried  as  he  was  formerly  over-praised.  Though 
not  a  great  original  genius,  he  was  an  accomplished  ver- 
sifier whose  innocent  prettiness  was  never  banal,  whose 
simplicity  was  unaffected,  whose  faint  music  and  caress- 
ing melancholy  are  not  lacking  in  individuality  and 
fascination. 

A  more  powerful  poetic  impulse  moved  the  Sevillan, 
GUSTAVO  ADOLFO  BECQUER  (1836-1870).  An  orphan  in 
his  tenth  year,  Becquer  was  educated  by  his  godmother, 
a  well-meaning  woman  of  some  position,  who  would 
have  made  him  her  heir  had  he  consented  to  follow  any 
regular  profession  or  to  enter  a  merchant's  office.  At 
eighteen  he  arrived,  a  penniless  vagabond,  in  Madrid, 
where  he  underwent  such  extremes  of  hardship  as  helped 
to  shorten  his  days.  A  small  official  post,  which  saved  /^ 
him  from  actual  starvation,  was  at  last  obtained  for  him, 
but  his  indiscipline  soon  caused  him  to  be  set  adrift. 
He  maintained  himself  by  translating  foreign  novels, 
by  journalistic  hack-work  in  the  columns  of  El  Contem- 
poraneo  and  El  Museo  Universal,  till  death  delivered  him. 


378  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

The  three  volumes  by  which  he  is  represented  are 
made  up  of  prose  legends,  and  of  poems  modestly 
entitled  Rimas.  Though  Hoffmann  is  Becquer's  intel- 
lectual ancestor  in  prose,  the  Spaniard  speaks  with  a 
personal  accent  in  such  examples  of  morbid  fantasy  as 
Los  Ojos  Verdes,  wherein  Fernando  loses  life  for  the 
sake  of  the  green-eyed  mermaiden :  as  the  tale  of  Man- 
rique's  madness  in  El  Rayo  de  Luna  (The  Moonbeam), 
as  the  rendering  of  Daniel's  sacrilege  in  La  Rosa  de 
Pasidn.  And  as  Hoffmann  influences  Becquer's  dreamy 
prose,  so  Heine  influences  his  Rimas.  It  is  argued  that, 
since  Becquer  knew  no  German,  he  cannot  have  read 
Heine  —  an  unconvincing  plea,  if  we  remember  that 
Byron's  example  was  followed  in  every  country  by 
poets  ignorant  of  English.  Howbeit,  it  is  certain  that 
Heine  has  had  no  more  brilliant  follower  than  Becquer, 
who,  however,  substitutes  a  note  of  fairy  mystery  for 
Heine's  incomparable  irony.  His  circumstances,  and  the 
fact  that  he  did  not  live  to  revise  his  work,  account  for 
occasional  inequalities  of  execution  which  mar  his  magical 
music.  To  do  him  justice,  we  must  read  him  in  a  few 
choice  pieces  where  his  apparently  simple  rhythms  and 
suave  assonantic  cadences  express  his  half-delirious  visions 
in  terms  of  unsurpassable  artistry.  At  first  sight  one  is 
deceived  into  thinking  that  the  simplicity  is  a  spontaneous 
result,  and  there  has  arisen  a  host  of  imitators  who  have 
only  contrived  to  caricature  Becquer's  defects.  His  merits 
are  as  purely  personal  as  Blake's,  and  the  imitation  of 
either  poet  results  almost  inevitably  in  mere  flatness. 

During  the  nineteenth  century  Spain  has  produced 
no  more  brilliant  master  of  prose  than  MARIANO  Jos£ 
DE  LARRA  (1809-1837),  son  of  a  medical  officer  in  the 


LARRA  379 

French  army.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that,  owing  to  his 
early  education  in  France,  Larra  —  one  of  the  most 
idiomatic  writers — should  have  been  almost  ignorant  of 
Spanish  till  his  tenth  year.  Destined  for  the  law,  he  was 
sent  to  Valladolid,  where  he  got  entangled  in  some  love 
affair  which  led  him  to  renounce  his  career.  He  took 
to  literature,  attempting  the  drama  in  his  Maa'as,  the 
novel  in  El  Doncel  de  Don  Enrique  el  Doliente :  in  neither 
was  he  successful.  But  if  he  could  not  draw  character 
nor  narrate  incident,  he  could  observe  and  satirise  with 
amazing  force  and  malice.  Under  the  name  of  Figaro * 
and  of  Juan  Perez  de  Munguia  he  won  for  himself 
such  prominence  in  journalism  as  no  Spaniard  has 
ever  equalled.  Sp_anish  politics,  the  weaknesses  of  the 
national  character,  are  exposed  in  a  spirit  of  ferocious 
bitterness  peculiar  to  the  writer.  His  is,  indeed,  a  de- 
pressing performance,  overcharged  with  misanthropy ; 
yet  for  unflinching  courage,  insight,  and  sombre  humour, 
Larra  has  no  equal  in  modern  Spanish  literature,  and 
scarcely  any  superior  in  the  past.  In  his  twenty-eighth 
year  he  blew  out  his  brains  in  consequence  of  an  amour 
in  which  he  was  concerned,  leaving  a  vacancy  which 
has  never  been  filled  by  any  successor.  It  is  gloomy 
work  to  learn  that  all  men  are  scoundrels,  and  that  all 
evils  are  irremediable :  these  are  the  hopeless  doctrines 
which  have  brought  Spain  to  her  present  pass.  Yet  it 
is  impossible  to  read  Larra's  pessimistic  page  without 
admiration  for  his  lucidity  and  power. 

An  essayist  of  more  patriotic  tone  is  SERAFIN  ESTE- 
BANEZ  CALDERON  (1799-1867),  whose  biography  has 

1  M.  Morel-Fatio  points  out  that  Figaro,  which  seems  so  Castilian  by 
association,  is  not  a  Castilian  name.  See  his  Etudes  stir  fEspagne  (Paris, 
1895),  vo'-  i-  P-76.  If  it  be  not  Catalan,  if  Beaumarchais  invented  it,  it  is 
among  the  most  successful  of  his  coinage. 


380  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

been  elaborately  written  by  his  nephew,  Antonio 
Canovas  del  Castillo,  the  late  Prime  Minister  of  Spain. 
Estebanez'  verses  are  well-nigh  as  forgotten  as  his 
Conquista  y  Pdrdida  de  Portugal,  and  his  Escenas  Anda- 
luzas  (1847)  have  never  been  popular,  partly  through 
fault  of  the  author,  who  enamels  his  work  with  local 
or  obsolete  words  in  the  style  of  Wardour  Street,  and 
who  assumes  a  posture  of  superiority  which  irritates 
more  than  it  amuses.  A  record  of  Andalucfan  manners 
and  of  fading  customs,  the  Escenas  has  special  value  as 
embodying  the  impression  of  an  observer  who  valued 
picturesqueness — valued  it  so  highly,  in  fact,  that  one 
is  haunted  (perhaps  unjustly)  by  the  suspicion  that  he 
heightened  his  tones  for  the  sake  of  effect.  Another 
series  of  "  documents  "  is  afforded  by  RAM6N  DE  MESO- 
NERO  ROMANOS  (1803-82),  who  is  often  classed  as  a 
follower  of  Larra,  whereas  the  first  of  his  Esctnas  Matri- 
tenses  appeared  before  Larra's  first  essays.  He  has  no 
trace  of  Larra's  energetic  condensation,  tending,  as  he 
does,  to  a  not  ungraceful  diffuseness  ;  but  he  has  be- 
queathed us  a  living  picture  of  the  native  Madrid  before 
it  sank  to  being  a  poor,  pale  copy  of  Paris,  and  has 
enabled  us  to  reconstruct  the  social  life  of  sixty  years 
since.  Mesonero,  who  has  none  of  Estebanez'  airs  and 
graces,  though  he  is  no  less  observant,  and  is  probably 
more  accurate,  writes  as  a  well-bred  man  speaks — simply, 
naturally,  directly ;  and  those  qualities  are  seen  to  most 
advantage  in  his  Memorias  de  un  Setenton,  which  are  as 
interesting  as  the  best  of  reminiscences  can  be. 

These  records  of  customs  and  manners  influenced  a 
writer  of  German  origin  on  her  father's  side,  Cecilia 
Bohl  de  Faber,  who  was  thrice  married,  and  whom  it 
is  convenient  to  call  by  her  pseudonym,  FERNAN  CABA- 


FERNAN  CABALLERO  ,381 

LLERO  (1796-1877),  a  village  in  Don  Quixote's  country. 
Her  first  novel,  La  Gaviota  (1848),  has  probably  been 
more  read  by  foreigners  than  any  Spanish  book  of  the 
century,  and,  with  all  its  sensibility  and  moralisings,  we 
can  scarcely  grudge  its  vogue  ;  for  it  is  true  to  common 
life  as  common  life  existed  in  an  Andalucian  village,  and 
its  style  is  natural,  if  not  distinguished.  Even  in  La 
Gaviota  there  is  an  air  of  unreality  when  the  scene  is 
shifted  from  the  country  to  the  drawing-room,  and  the 
suspicion  that  Fernan  Caballero  could  invent  without 
observing  deepens  in  presence  of  such  a  wooden  lay-figure 
as  Sir  George  Percy  in  dementia.  Her  didactic  bent 
increased  with  time,  so  that  much  of  her  later  work  is 
bedevilled  with  sermons  and  gospellings  ;  yet  so  long 
as  she  deals  with  the  rustic  episodes  which  were  her 
earliest  memories,  so  long  as  she  is  content  to  report 
and  to  describe,  she  produces  a  delightful  series  of  pic- 
tures, touched  in  with  an  almost  irreproachable  refine- 
ment. She  is  not  far  enough  from  us  to  be  a  classic ; 
but  she  is  sufficiently  removed  to  be  old-fashioned,  and 
she  suffers  accordingly.  Still  it  is  safe  to  prophesy  that 
La  Gaviota  will  survive  most  younger  rivals. 

In  all  likelihood  PEDRO  ANTONIO  DE  ALARCON  (1833- 
1891),  who,  like  most  literary  Spaniards,  injured  his  work 
by  meddling  in  politics,  will  live  by  his  shorter,  more 
unambitious  stories.  His  Escdndolo  (1875),  after  creating 
a  prodigious  sensation  as  a  defence  of  the  Jesuits  from 
an  old  revolutionist,  is  already  laid  aside,  and  La  Prddiga 
is  in  no  better  case.  The  true  Alarc6n  is  revealed  in 
El  Sombrero  de  tres  Ptcos,  a  picture  of  rustic  manners, 
rendered  with  infinite  enjoyment  and  merry  humour ;  in 
the  rapid,  various  sketches  entitled  Historietas  Nacionales; 
and  in  that  gallant,  picturesque  account  of  the  Morocco 


382  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

campaign  called  the  Diario  de  un  Testigo  de  la  Guerra  en 
Africa — as  vivid  a  piece  of  patriotic  chronicling  as  these 
latest  years  have  shown. 

Of  graver  prose  modern  Spain  has  little  to  boast. 
Yet  the  Marques  de  Valdegamas,  JUAN  DONOSO  CORT£S 
(1809-1853)  has  written  an  Ensayo  sobre  el  Catolicismo,  el 
Liberalismo  y  el  Socialismo,  which  has  been  read  and  ap- 
plauded throughout  Europe.  Donoso,  the  most  intoler- 
ant of  Spaniards,  overwhelms  his  readers  with  dogmatic 
statement  in  place  of  reasoned  exposition  ;  but  he  writes 
with  astonishing  eloquence,  and  with  a  superb  convic- 
tion of  his  personal  infallibility  that  has  scarcely  any 
match  in  literature.  At  the  opposite  pole  is  the  Vich 
priest,  JAIME  BALMES  Y  USPIA  (1810-48),  whose  Cartas 
a  un  Esceptico  and  Criteria  are  overshadowed  by  his  Pro- 
testantismo  comparado  en  el  Catolicismot  a  performance  of 
striking  ingenuity,  among  the  finest  in  the  list  of  modern 
controversy.  Donoso  denounced  man's  reason  as  a  gin 
of  the  devil,  as  a  faculty  whose  natural  tendency  is 
towards  error.  Balmes  appeals  to  reason  at  every  step 
of  the  road.  With  him,  indeed,  it  is  unsafe  to  allow 
that  two  and  two  are  four  until  it  is  ascertained  what  he 
means  to  do  with  that  proposition  ;  for  his  subtlety  is 
almost  uncanny,  and  his  dexterity  in  using  an  opponent's 
admission  is  surprising.  If  anything,  Balmes  is  even  too 
clever,  for  the  most  simple-minded  reader  is  driven  to 
ask  how  it  is  possible  that  any  rational  being  can  hold 
the  opposite  view.  Still,  from  the  Catholic  standpoint, 
Balmes  is  unanswerable,  and — in  Spain  at  least — he  has 
never  been  answered,  while  his  vogue  abroad  has  been 
very  great.  Setting  aside  its  doctrinal  bearing,  his  treatise 
is  a  most  striking  example  of  destructive  criticism  and  of 
marshalled  argument. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

CONTEMPORARY    LITERATURE 

To  write  an  account  of  contemporary  literature  is  an 
undertaking  not  less  tempting  than  to  write  the  history 
of  contemporary  politics.  Its  productions  are  likely  to 
be  familiar  to  us ;  its  authors  have  probably  expressed 
ideas  with  which  we  are  more  or  less  in  sympathy  ;  and 
in  dealing  with  these  we  are  free  from  the  burdens  of 
authority  and  tradition.  On  the  other  hand,  criticism  of 
contemporaries  is  so  prone  to  be  coloured  by  the  pre- 
judice of  sects  and  cliques,  that  the  liberal  historian  of 
the  past  is  in  danger  of  exhibiting  himself  as  a  blind 
observer  of  the  present,  or  as  a  ludicrous  prophet  of 
the  future.  A  book  on  current  literature  is  often,  like 
Hansard,  a  melancholy  register  of  mistaken  forecasts. 
Probably  no  critic  of  1820  would  have  ventured  to 
place  Keats  among  the  greatest  poets  of  the  world. 
But  the  risk  of  failing  to  recognise  a  Keats  is,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  very  slight ;  and  for  our  present 
purpose  we  are  only  concerned  with  those  who,  by 
general  admission,  are  among  the  living  influences  of 
the  moment,  the  chiefs  of  a  generation  which  is  now 
almost  middle-aged. 

No  Spaniard  would  contest  the  title  of  the  Asturian, 
RAMON  DE  CAMPOAMOR  Y  CAMPOOSORIO  (b.  1817),  to  be 
considered  as  the  actual  doyen  of  Spanish  literature.  He 
purposed  entering  the  Society  of  Jesus  in  his  youth,  then 


384  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

turned  to  medicine  as  his  true  vocation,  and  finally  gave 
himself  up  to  poetry  and  politics.  A  fierce  conservative, 
Campoamor  has  served  as  Governor  of  Alicante  and 
Valencia,  and  has  combated  democracy  by  speech  and 
pen  ;  but  he  has  never  been  taken  seriously  as  a  politician, 
and  his  few  philosophic  essays  have  caused  his  ortho- 
doxy to  be  questioned  by  writers  with  an  imperfect  sense 
of  humour.  His  controversy  with  Valera  on  metaphysics 
and  poetry  is  a  manifest  joke  to  which  both  writers 
have  lent  themselves  with  an  affectation  of  profound 
solemnity ;  and  it  may  well  be  doubted  if  Campoamor's 
professed  convictions  are  more  than  occasions  for 
humoristic  ingenuity. 

He  has  attempted  the  drama  without  success  in  such 
pieces  as  El  Palacio  de  la  Verdad  and  in  El  Honor.  So 
also  in  the  eight  cantos  of  a  grandiose  poem  entitled  El 
Drama  Universal  (1873)  he  has  failed  to  impress  with 
his  version  of  the  posthumous  loves  of  Honorio  and 
Soledad,  though  in  the  matter  of  technical  execution 
nothing  finer  has  been  accomplished  in  our  day.  His 
chief  distinction,  according  to  Peninsular  critics,  is  that 
he  has  invented  a  new  poetic  genre  under  the  names  of 
doloras,  humoradas  or  pequenos  poemas  (short  poems).  It 
is  not,  however,  an  easy  matter  to  distinguish  any  one 
of  these  from  its  brethren,  and  Campoamor's  own 
explanation  lacks  clearness  when  he  lays  it  down  that 
a  dolora  is  a  dramatised  humorada,  and  that  a  pcqueno 
poema  is  an  amplified  dolora.  This  is  to  define  light  in 
terms  of  darkness.  An  acute  critic,  M.  Peseux-Richard, 
has  noted  that  this  definition  is  not  only  obscure,  but 
that  it  is  an  evident  after-thought.1  The  dolora  is  the 
first  in  order  of  invention,  and  it  is  also  the  performance 

1  See  the  Revue  hispaniqut  (Paris,  1894),  vol.  i.  pp.  236-257. 


• 
CAMPOAMOR  385 

upon  which,  to  judge  by  his  Pottica,  Campoamor  sets 
most  value.  What,  then,  is  a  dolora  ?  It  is,  in  fact,  a 
"  transcendental "  fable  in  which  men  and  women,  their 
words  and  acts,  are  made  to  typify  eternal  "verities": 
a  poem  which  aims  at  brevity,  delicacy,  pathos,  and 
philosophy  in  an  ironical  setting.  The  "transcendental" 
truth  to  be  conveyed  is  the  supreme  point :  exquisiteness 
of  form  is  unimportant. 

M.  Peseux-Richard  dryly  remarks  that  humoradas  are 
as  old  as  anything  in  literature,  and  that  Campoamor's 
exploit  consists  in  inventing  the  name,  not  the  thing. 
This  is  true ;  and  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  the 
writing  of  doloras  (and  the  rest),  after  the  recipe  of 
the  master,  has  become  a  plague  of  recent  Spanish 
literature.  Fortunately  Campoamor  is  better  than  his 
theories,  which,  if  he  were  consistent,  would  lead  him 
straight  to  conceptismo.  Doubtless,  at  whiles,  he  con- 
descends upon  the  banal,  mistakes  sentimentalism  for 
sentiment,  substitutes  a  commonplace  for  an  aphorism, 
a  paradox  for  an  epigram  ;  doubtless,  also,  he  is  wanting 
in  the  right  national  note  of  exaltation  and  rhetorical 
splendour.  But  for  all  his  profession  of  indifference  to 
form,  he  is — at  his  best — a  most  accomplished  craftsman, 
an  admirable  artist  in  miniature,  an  expert  in  the  art  of 
concise  expression,  and,  in  so  much,  a  healthy  influence 
— though  not  without  a  concealed  germ  of  evil.  For  if  in 
his  own  hands  the  ingenious  antithesis  often  reaches  the 
utmost  point  of  condensation,  in  the  hands  of  imitators 
it  is  degraded  to  an  obscure  conceit,  a  rhymed  conun- 
drum. His  vogue  has  always  been  considerable,  and  he 
is  one  of  the  few  Spanish  poets  whose  reputation  extends 
beyond  the  Pyrenees  ;  still,  he  is  not  in  any  sense  a 
national  poet,  a  characteristic  product  of  the  soil,  and 


386  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

with  all  his  distinguished  scepticism,  his  picturesque 
pessimistic  pose,  and  his  sound  workmanship,  he  is 
more  likely  to  be  remembered  for  a  score  of  brilliant 
apophthegms  than  for  any  essentially  poetic  quality. 

It  was  as  a  poet  that  JUAN  VALERA  Y  ALCALA  GALIANO 
(b.  1827)  made  his  first  appearance  in  literature  in  1856. 
Few  in  Europe  have  seen  more  aspects  of  life,  or  have 
snatched  more  profit  from  their  opportunities.  Born  at 
C6rdoba,  educated  at  Malaga  and  Granada,  Valera  has 
so  enjoyed  life  from  the  outset  that  his  youth  is  now  the 
subject  of  a  legend.  Passing  from  law  to  diplomacy,  he 
learned  the  world  in  the  legations  at  Naples,  Lisbon,  Rio 
Janeiro,  Dresden,  St.  Petersburg ;  he  helped  to  found 
El  Contemporanto,  once  a  journal  of  great  influence  ;  he 
entered  the  Cortes,  and  became  minister  at  Frankfort, 
Washington,  Brussels,  and  Vienna.  His  native  subtlety, 
his  cosmopolitan  tact,  have  served  him  no  less  in  literature 
than  in  affairs.  To  literature  he  has  given  the  best  that 
is  in  him.  He  has  protested,  with  the  ironical  humility 
in  which  he  excels,  against  the  public  neglect  of  hi& 
poems ;  and  when  one  reflects  upon  what  has  found 
favour  in  this  kind,  the  protest  is  half  justified.  Valera's 
verses,  falling  short  as  they  do  of  inspired  perfection,  are 
wrought  with  curious  delicacy  of  technique.  But  his 
very  cultivation  is  against  him :  such  poems  as  Sueiios  or 
Ultimo  Adios  or  El  Fuego  divino,  admirable  as  they  are, 
recall  the  work  of  predecessors.  Memories  of  Luis  de 
Le6n,  traces  of  Dante  and  Leopardi,  are  encountered  on 
his  best  page ;  and  yet  he  brings  with  him  into  modern 
verse  qualities  which,  in  the  actual  stage  of  Spanish 
literature,  are  of  singular  worth — repose  and  refinement 
and  dignity  and  metrical  mastery. 

As   a  critic  his  diplomatic  training  has  been  a  hin- 


VALERA  387 

drance  to  him.  He  rarely  writes  without  establishing 
some  ingenious  and  suggestive  parallel  or  pronouncing 
some  luminous  judgment ;  but  he  is,  so  to  say,  in  fear 
of  his  own  intelligence,  and  his  instinctive  courtesy,  his 
desire  to  please,  often  stay  him  from  arriving  at  a  clear 
conclusion.  His  manifold  interests,  the  incomparable 
beauty  of  his  style,  his  wide  reading,  his  cold  lucidity, 
are  an  almost  ideal  equipment  for  critical  work.  Expert 
in  ingratiation  as  he  is,  his  suave  complaisance  becomes 
a  formidable  weapon  in  such  a  performance  as  the  Cartas 
Americanas,  where  excessive  urbanity  has  all  the  effect 
of  commination  :  you  set  the  book  down  with  the  im- 
pression that  the  writers  of  the  South  American  continent 
have  been  complimented  out  of  existence  by  a  stately 
courtier. 

But  whatever  reserves  may  be  made  in  praising  the 
poet  and  the  critic,  Valera's  triumph  as  a  novelist  is  in- 
contestable. Mr.  Gosse  has  so  introduced  him  to  English 
readers  as  to  make  further  criticism  almost  superfluous. 
Valera,  for  all  his  polite  scepticism,  is  a  Spaniard  of  the 
best :  a  mystic  by  intuition  and  inheritance,  a  doubter 
by  force  of  circumstances  and  education.  He  himself  has 
told  us  in  the  Comendador  Mendoza  how  Pepita  Jimenez 
came  into  life  as  the  result  of  much  mystic  reading, 
which  held  him  fascinated  but  not  captive ;  and  were 
we  to  accept  his  humorous  confession  literally,  we  should 
take  it  that  he  became  a  novelist  by  accident.  It  is,  how- 
ever, true  that  when  he  wrote  Pepita  Jimenez  he  still  had 
much  to  learn  in  method.  Writers  with  not  a  tithe  of 
his  natural  gift  would  have  avoided  his  obvious  faults — 
his  digressions,  his  episodes  which  check  the  current  of 
his  story.  But  Pepita  Jim/nez,  whatever  its  defects,  is  of 
capital  importance  in  literary  history,  for  from  its  publi- 


388  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

cation  dates  the  renaissance  of  the  Spanish  novel.  Here 
at  last  was  a  book  owing  nothing  to  France,  taking  its 
root  in  native  inspiration,  arabesquing  the  motives  of 
Luis  de  Granada,  Le6n,  Santa  Teresa,  displaying  once 
more  what  Coventry  Patmore  has  well  described  as 
"  that  complete  synthesis  of  gravity  of  matter  and  gaiety 
of  manner  which  is  the  glittering  crown  of  art,  and 
which,  out  of  Spanish  literature,  is  to  be  found  only 
in  Shakespeare,  and  even  in  him  in  a  far  less  obvious 
degree." 

And  Valera  has  continued  to  progress  in  art.  In 
construction,  in  depth,  in  psychological  insight,  Dona 
Luz  exceeds  its  predecessor,  as  the  Comendador  Mendoza 
outshines  both  in  vigour  of  expression,  in  tragic  con- 
ception, in  pathetic  sincerity.  Las  Ilusiones  del  Doctor 
Faustina  has  found  less  favour  with  critics  and  with 
general  readers,  perhaps  because  its  humour  is  too  re- 
fined, its  observation  too  merciless,  its  style  too  subtle. 
Nor  is  Valera  less  successful  in  the  short  story,  and  in 
the  dialogue,  in  which  sort  Asclepigenia  may  be  held  for 
an  absolute  masterpiece  in  little.  His  work  lies  before 
us,  complete  for  all  purposes ;  for  though  he  still  pub- 
lishes for  our  delight,  advancing  age  compels  him  to 
dictate  instead  of  writing — a  harassing  condition  for  an 
artist  whose  talent  is  free  from  any  touch  of  declamation. 
It  is  hard  for  us  who  have  undergone  the  spell  of  Prospero, 
who  have  been  fascinated  by  his  truth  and  grace  and 
sympathy,  to  judge  him  with  the  impartiality  of  posterity. 
But  we  may  safely  anticipate  its  general  verdict.  It  may 
be  that  some  of  his  improvisations  will  lack  durability; 
but  these  are  few.  Valera,  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  is 
entitled  to  be  judged  at  his  best,  and  his  best  will  be 
read  as  long  as  Spanish  literature  endures ;  for  he  is 


PEREDA  389 

not  simply  a  dexterous  craftsman  using  one  of  the 
noblest  of  languages  with  an  exquisite  delicacy  and 
illimitable  variety  of  means,  nor  a  clever  novelist  exer- 
cising a  superficial  talent,  nor  even  (though  he  is  that 
in  a  very  special  sense)  the  leader  of  a  national  revival. 
He  is  something  far  rarer  and  more  potent  than  an 
accomplished  man  of  letters  :  a  great  creative  artist, 
and  the  embodiment  of  a  people's  genius. 

A  less  cosmopolitan,  but  scarcely  less  original  talent 
is  that  of  JOSE  MARIA  DE  PEREDA  (b.  1834),  who  comes, 
like  so  many  distinguished  Spaniards,  from  "  the  moun- 
tain." Born  at  Polanco,  trained  as  a  civil  engineer  in 
his  province  of  Santander,  Pereda  was — and,  perhaps, 
still  is,  theoretically — a  stout  Carlist,  an  intransigent 
ultramontane  whose  social  position  has  enabled  him  to 
despise  the  politics  of  expediency.  His  earliest  essays 
in  a  local  newspaper,  La  Abeja  Montanesa,  attracted  no 
attention  ;  nor  was  he  much  more  fortunate  with  his 
amazingly  brilliant  Escenas  Montaftesas  (1864).  Fernan 
Caballero,  and  a  gentle  sentimentalist  now  wholly  for- 
gotten, Antonio  Trueba  (1821-89),  satisfied  readers 
with  graceful  insipidities,  beside  which  the  new-comer's 
manly  realism  seemed  almost  crude.  The  conventional 
villager,  simple,  Arcadian,  and  impossible,  held  the  field ; 
and  Pereda's  revelation  of  unveiled  rusticity  was  esteemed 
displeasing,  unnecessary,  inartistic.  He  had  to  educate 
his  public.  From  the  outset  he  found  a  few  enthusiasts 
to  appreciate  him  in  his  native  province ;  and,  by  slow 
degrees,  he  succeeded  in  imposing  himself  first  upon  the 
general  audience,  and  then,  with  much  more  difficulty, 
upon  official  critics.  It  is  commonly  alleged  against  him 
that  even  in  his  more  ambitious  novels — in  Don  Gonzalo 
Gonzalez  de  la  Gonzolera,  in  Pedro  Sanchez,  where  he  deals 


390  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

with  town  life,  and  in  Sotileza,  which  is  salt  with  the  sea 
• — his  personages  are  local.  The  observation  is  intended 
as  a  reproach ;  but,  in  truth,  Pereda's  men  and  women 
are  only  local  as  Sancho  Panza  and  Maritornes  are  local 
— local  in  particulars,  universal  as  types  of  nature.  His 
true  defects  are  his  tendency  to  abuse  his  knowledge  of 
dialect,  to  insist  on  a  moral  aim,  to  caricature  his  villains. 
These  are  spots  on  the  sun.  On  the  whole,  he  pictures 
life  as  he  sees  it,  with  unblenching  fidelity;  his  people  live 
and  move ;  and — not  least — he  is  a  master  of  nervous, 
energetic  phrase.  No  writer  outdoes  him  as  a  landscape- 
painter  in  rendering  the  fertile  valleys,  the  cold  hills,  the 
vexed  Cantabrian  sea,  to  which  he  returns  with  the  inti- 
mate passion  of  a  lover. 

The  representative  of  a  younger  school  is  BENITO 
PEREZ  GALDOS  (b.  1845),  who  left  the  Canary  Islands  in 
his  nineteenth  year  with  the  purpose  of  reading  law  in 
Madrid.  A  brief  trial  of  journalism,  previous  to  the 
revolution  of  1868,  led  to  the  publication  of  his  first 
novel,  La  Fontana  de  Oro  (1870),  and  since  1873  he  has 
shown  a  wondrous  persistence  and  suppleness  of  talent. 
His  Episodios  Nacionales  alone  fill  twenty  volumes,  and  as 
many  more  exist  detached  from  that  series.  He  has  com- 
posed the  modern  national  epic  in  the  form  of  novels: 
novels  which  have  for  their  setting  the  War  of  Independ- 
ence, and  the  succeeding  twenty  years  of  civil  combat ; 
novels  in  which  not  less  than  five  hundred  characters  are 
presented.  Gald6s  is  in  singular  contrast  with  his  friend 
Pereda.  The  prejudiced  Tory  has  educated  his  public ; 
the  Liberal  reformer  has  been  educated  by  his  contem- 
poraries. Gald6s  has  always  had  his  fingers  on  the  general 
pulse  ;  and  when  the  readers  in  the  late  seventies  wearied 
of  the  historico-political  novel,  Gald6s  was  ready  with  La 


GALD6S:    ALAS  391 

Familia  de  Leon  Roch,  with  Gloria,  and  with  Dona  Per- 
fecta,  in  which  the  religious  difficulty  is  posed  ten  years 
before  Robert  Elsmere  was  written.  His  third  stage  of 
development  is  exampled  in  Fortuna  y  Jacinta,  a  most 
forcible  study  of  contemporary  life.  A  prolific  inventor, 
a  minute  observer  of  detail,  Galdos  combines  realism 
with  fantasy,  flat  prose  with  poetic  imagination,  so  that 
he  succeeds  best  in  drawing  psychological  eccentricities 
like  Angel  Guerra.  He  is  perhaps  too  Spanish  to  endure 
translation,  too  prone  to  assume  that  his  readers  are 
familiar  with  the  minutiae  of  Peninsular  life  and  history, 
and  his  construction,  broad  as  it  is,  lacks  solidity  ;  but 
that  he  deserves  the  greater  part  of  his  fame  is  unques- 
tionable, and  if  there  be  doubters,  Fortuna  y  Jacinta  and 
Angel  Guerra  are  at  hand  to  vindicate  the  judgment. 

In  all  the  length  and  breadth  of  Spain  no  writer  (with 
the  possible  exception  of  that  slashing,  incorrigible, 
brilliant  reviewer,  Antonio  de  Valbuena)  is  better  known 
and  more  feared  than  LEOPOLDO  ALAS  (b.  1852),  who  / 
uses  the  pseudonym  of  Clarin.  Alas  is  often  accused 
of  fierce  intolerance  as  a  critic";  and  the  charge  has  this 
much  truth  in  it — that  he  is  righteously,  splendidly  in- 
tolerant of  a  pretender,  a  mountebank,  or  a  dullard.  He 
may  be  right  or  wrong  in  judgment ;  but  there  is  some- 
thing noble  in  the  intrepidity  with  which  he  handles  an 
established  reputation,  in  the  infinite  malice  with  which 
he  riddles  an  enemy.  An  ample  knowledge  of  other 
literatures  than  his  own,  a  catholic  taste,  as  pretty  a  wit 
as  our  days  have  seen,  and  a  most  combative,  gallant 
spirit  make  him  a  critical  force  which,  on  the  whole,  is 
used  for  good.  He  is  not  mentioned  here,  however,  as 
the  formidable  gladiator  of  journalism,  but  as  the  author 

of  one  of  the  best  contemporary  novels.     La  Regenta 
26 


I ./      fi      V  . 

392  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

(1884-1885)  is,  in  the  first  place,  a  searching  analysis  of 
criminal  passion,  marked  by  fine  insight ;  and  the  exami- 
nation of  false  mysticism  which  betrays  Ana  Ozores  is 
among  the  subtlest,  most  masterly  achievements  in  recent 
literature.  Gald6s  is  realistic  and  persuasive :  Alas  is 
real  and  convincing.  He  has  not  the  cunning  of  the  con- 
triver of  situations,  and  as  he  never  condescends  to  the 
novelist's  artifice,  he  imperils  his  chance  of  popularity. 
In  truth,  far  from  enjoying  a  vulgar  vogue,  La  Regenta 
has  had  the  distinction  of  being  condemned  by  critic- 
asters who  have  never  read  it.  Su  unico  Hijo,  and  the 
collection  of  short  stories  entitled  Pipd,  interesting  and 
finished  in  detail,  are  of  slighter  substance  and  value. 
The  duties  of  a  law  professorship  at  the  University  of 
Oviedo,  the  tasks  of  journalism,  have  occupied  Alas  during 
the  last  four  years.  Literature  in  Spain  is  but  a  poor 
crutch,  and  even  the  popular  Valera  has  told  us  that  he 
must  perish  did  he  depend  upon  his  pen.  Spanish  men 
of  letters  have  to  be  content  with  fame.  Meanwhile, 
it  is  known  that  Alas  is  at  work  upon  the  long-promised 
EsperaindeOj  in  which  we  may  fairly  hope  to  find  a  com- 
panion to  La  Regenta. 

Of  ARMANDO  PALACIO  VALORS  (b.  1853)  it  can  hardly 
be  said  that  he  has  fulfilled  the  promise  of  Marta  y 
Maria  and  La  Hermana  de  San  Sulpicio.  Alas,  with 
whom  Palacio  Vald^s  collaborated  in  a  critical  review 
of  the  literature  of  1881,  has  succeeded  in  absorbing  the 
good  elements  of  the  modern  French  naturalistic  school 
without  losing  his  Spanish  savour.  Palacio  Valdes  has 
surrendered  great  part  of  his  nationality  in  Espuma  and 
in  La  Fe,  which  might,  with  a  change  of  names,  be 
taken  for  translations  of  French  novels.  He  has  abun- 
dant cleverness,  a  sure  hand  in  construction,  a  distinct 


DONA  EMILIA  PARDO  BAZAN  393 

power  of  character-drawing,  which  have  won  him  more 
consideration  out  of  Spain  than  in  it,  and  he  has  a 
fair  claim  to  rank  as  the  chief  of  the  modern  naturalistic 
school.  His  most  distinguished  rival  is  the  Galician,  the 
Sra.  Quiroga,  better  known  by  her  maiden  name  of 
EMILIA  PARDO  BAZAN  (b.  1851),  the  best  authoress  that 
Spain  has  produced  during  the  present  century.  Her 
earliest  effort  was  a  prize  essay  on  Feij6o  (1876),  followed 
by  a  volume  of  verses  which  I  have  never  seen,  and 
upon  which  the  writer  is  satisfied  that  oblivion  should 
scatter  its  poppy.  She  pleases  most  in  picturesque  de- 
scription of  country  life  and  manners  in  her  province,  of 
scenes  in  La  Coruna,  which  she  glorifies  in  her  writings 
as  Marineda.  Her  foundation  of  a  critical  review,  the 
Nuevo  Teatro  Critico,  written  entirely  by  herself,  showed 
confidence  and  enterprise,  and  enabled  her  to  propagate 
her  eclectic  views  on  life  and  art.  Women  have  hitherto 
been  more  impressionable  than  original,  and  Dona  Emilia 
has  been  drawn  into  the  French  naturalistic  current  in 
Los  Pazos  de  Ulloa  (1886)  and  in  La  Madre  Naturaleza 
(1887).  Both  novels  contain  episodes  of  remarkable 
power,  and  La  Madre  Naturaleza  is  an  almost  epical 
glorification  of  primitive  instincts.  But  Spain  has  a 
native  realism  of  her  own,  and  it  is  scarcely  probable 
that  the  French  variety  will  ever  supersede  it.  It  is  as  a 
naturalistic  novelist  that  the  Sra.  Pardo  Bazan  is  gener- 
ally known  ;  but  the  fashion  of  naturalism  is  already 
passing,  and  it  is  by  the  rich  colouring,  the  local  know- 
ledge, the  patriotic  enthusiasm,  and  the  exact  vision  of 
such  transcripts  of  local  scene  and  custom  as  abound 
in  De  mi  tierra  that  she  best  conveys  the  impressions  of 
an  exuberant  and  even  irresistible  temperament.  What 
Pereda  has  accomplished  for  the  land  of  the  mountain 


394  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

the  Sra.  Pardo  Bazan  has,  in  lesser  measure,  done  tor 
Galicia. 

One  must  hold  it  against  her  that  she  should  have 
aided  in  establishing  the  trivial  vogue  of  the  Jesuit, 
Luis  COLOMA  (b.  1851),  whose  Pequefleces  (1890)  caused 
more  sensation  than  any  novel  of  the  last  twenty  years. 
Palacio  Vald6s  has  been  severely  censured  for  writing,  in 
Espuma,  of  "society"  in  which  he  has  never  moved. 
"What,"  asked  Isaac  Disraeli,  "what  does  my  son  know 
about  dukes  ?  "  The  Padre  Coloma's  acquaintance  with 
dukes  is  extensive  and  peculiar.  Born  at  Jerez  de  la 
Frontera,  he  came  under  the  influence  of  Fernan  Caba- 
llero,  whom  he  has  pictured  in  El  Viernes  de  Dolores,  and 
with  whom  he  collaborated  in  Juan  Miseria.  His  lively 
youth  was  spent  in  drawing-rooms  where  Alfonsist  plots 
were  hatched ;  and  when,  at  the  age  of  twenty-three, 
he  joined  the  Society  of  Jesus  after  receiving  a  mys- 
terious bullet-wound  which  brought  him  to  death's  door, 
he  knew  as  much  of  Madrid  "society"  as  any  man  in 
Spain.  His  literary  mission  appears  to  be  to  satirise 
the  Spanish  aristocracy,  and  Pequefteces  is  his  capital 
effort  in  that  kind.  An  angry  controversy  followed,  in 
which  Valera  made  one  of  his  few  mistakes  by  taking  the 
field  against  Coloma,  who,  with  all  his  superficial  smart- 
ness, is  a  special  pleader  and  not  an  artist.  A  roman  a 
clef  is  always  sure  of  ephemeral  success,  and  readers 
were  too  intent  on  identifying  the  originals  of  Currita 
Albornoz  and  Villamelon  to  observe  that  Pequeneces  was  a 
hasty  improvisation,  void  of  plot  and  character  and  truth 
and  style.  Certain  scenes  are  good  enough  to  pass  as 
episodical  caricatures,  and  had  the  Padre  Coloma  the 
endowment  of  wit  and  gaiety  and  distinction,  he  might 
hope  to  develop  into  a  clerical  Gyp.  As  it  is,  he  has 


ECHEGARAY  395 

shot  his  bolt,  achieved  a  notoriety  which  is  even  now 
fading,  and  is  in  a  fair  way  to  be  dethroned  from  his 
position  by  Vicente  Blasco  Ibdnez,  the  author  of  Flor  de 
Mayo,  and  by  Juan  Ochoa,  the  writer  of  Un  Alma  de  Dios. 
These  two  novelists,  the  rising  hopes  of  the  immediate 
future,  are  rapidly  growing  in  repute  as  in  accomplish- 
ment. Narcis  Oiler  y  Moragas  (b.  1846)  has  shown 
singular  gifts  in  such  tales  as  L'Escanya-pobres,  Vilaniu, 
and  Viva  Espanya.  But,  as  he  writes  in  Catalan,  we  have 
no  immediate  concern  with  him  here. 

Of  the  modern  Spanish  theatre  there  is  little  originality 
to  report.  Tamayo's  successor  in  popular  esteem  is 
Josfi  ECHEGARAY  (1832),  who  first  came  into  notice  as  a 
mathematician,  a  political  economist,  a  revolutionary 
orator,  and  a  minister  of  the  short  -  lived  republic. 
Writing  under  the  obvious  anagram  of  Jorge  Hayeseca, 
Echegaray  first  attempted  the  drama  so  late  as  1874,  and 
has  since  then  succeeded  and  failed  with  innumerable 
pieces.  He  is  essentially  a  romantic,  as  he  proves  in  La 
Esposa  del  Vengador  and  in  0  Locura  6  Santidad ;  but 
there  is  nothing  distinctively  national  in  his  work,  which 
continually  reflects  the  passing  fashions  of  the  moment. 
His  plays  are  commonly  well  constructed,  as  one  might 
expect  from  a  mathematician  applying  his  science  to  the 
scene,  and  he  has  a  certain  power  of  gloomy  realisation, 
as  in  El  Gran  Galeoto,  which  moves  and  impresses  ;  yet 
he  has  created  no  character,  he  delights  in  cheap  effects, 
and  when  he  betakes  himself  to  verse,  is  prone  to  a 
banality  which  is  almost  vulgar.  A  delightfully  middle- 
class  writer,  his  appreciation  by  middle-class  audiences 
calls  for  no  special  comment.  It  even  speaks  for 
itself. 

The  drama  has  also  been  attempted  by  CASPAR  NUNEZ 


396  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

DE  ARCE  (b.  1834),  whose  Haz  de  Lefla,  in  which  Felipe 
II.  figures,  is  the  most  distinguished  historical  drama  of 
the  century,  written  with  a  reserve  and  elegance  rare  on 
the  modern  Spanish  stage.  Nunez  de  Arce,  however, 
though  he  began  with  a  successful  play  in  his  fifteenth 
year,  was  well  advised  when  he  forsook  the  scene  and 
gave  himself  to  pure  lyrism.  His  disillusioning  political 
experiences  as  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonies  have 
reduced  him  to  silence  during  the  last  few  years.  He 
was  born  to  sing  songs  of  victory,  to  be  the  poet  of 
ordered  liberty,  and  circumstances  have  cast  his  lot  in 
times  of  disaster  and  revolutionary  excess.  He  has  had 
no  opportunity  of  celebrating  a  national  triumph,  and 
his  hopes  of  a  golden  age,  to  be  brought  about  by  a 
few  constitutional  changes,  have  been  grievously  dis- 
appointed. Yet  it  is  as  a  political  singer  that  he  has 
won  a  present  fame  and  that  he  will  pass  onward  to 
renown.  His  Idilio  is  a  rustic  love  story  of  fine  sim- 
plicity, of  an  impressive,  pure  realism  which  lifts  it 
above  the  common  level  of  pastoral  poems,  and  its 
sincerity,  its  austere  finish,  are  characteristic  of  the 
poet,  who  is  always  a  scrupulous  artist,  a  passionate 
devotee  and  observer  of  nature,  as  he  has  proved 
once  more  in  La  Pesca.  In  Raimundo  Lulio,  Nunez 
de  Arce's  superb  execution  is  displayed  with  a  superb 
result  which  almost  tempts  the  coldest  reader  into 
pardoning  the  confusion  of  two  separate  themes — alle- 
gory and  amorism.  But  a  political  poet  he  remains, 
and  the  famous  Gritos  de  Combate  (1875),  in  which  he 
denounces  anarchy,  pleads  for  freedom  and  for  concord, 
with  a  civic  courage  beyond  all  praise,  is  a  lasting  monu- 
ment in  its  kind.  Modern  Castilian  shows  no  poetic 
figure  to  compare  with  him,  and  the  only  promises  of 


V 

MENENDEZ  Y  PELAYO  397 

our  time  are  Jacinto  Verdaguer  and  Joan  Maragall,  two 
Catalan  singers  who  fall  without  our  limit. 

The  present  century  has  produced  no  great  Spanish 
historian,  though  there  has  been  an  active  movement  of 
historical  research,  headed  by  scholars  like  Fidel  Fita, 
specialists  like  Cardenas,  Azcarate,  Costa,  Perez  Pujol, 
Ribera,  Jimenez  de  la  Espada,  Fernandez  Duro,  and 
Hinojosa,  all  of  whom  have  produced  brilliant  mono- 
graphs, or  have  accumulated  valuable  materials  for  the 
Mariana  of  the  future.  In  criticism  also  there  has  been 
a  marked  advance  of  scholarship  and  tolerance,  thanks 
to  the  example  of  MARCELINO  MENENDEZ  Y  PELAYO  (b. 
1856),  whose  extraordinary  learning  and  argumentative 
acuteness  were  first  shown  in  his  Ciencia  Espanola  (1878), 
and  his  Historia  de  los  Heterodoxos  Espailoles  (i 880-81). 
Since  then  the  slight  touch  of  acerbity,  of  provincial 
narrowness,  has  disappeared,  the  writer's  talent  has 
matured,  and,  starting  as  the  standard-bearer  of  an 
aggressive  party,  anxious  to  recover  lost  ground,  his 
sympathies  have  widened  as  his  erudition  has  taken 
deeper  root,  till  at  the  present  moment  he  is  accepted  by 
his  ancient  foes  as  the  most  sagacious  and  accomplished 
of  Spanish  critics.  His  Odas,  Epistolas  y  Tragedias,  is  a 
signal  instance  of  technical  excellence  in  versification, 
containing  as  good  a  version  of  the  Isles  of  Greece  as  any 
foreigner  has  achieved.  But,  after  all,  it  is  not  as  poet, 
but  as  critic,  as  literary  historian,  that  he  is  hailed  by 
his  countrymen  as  a  prodigy.  He  has,  perhaps,  under- 
taken too  much,  and  the  editing  of  Lope  de  Vega  may  cause 
the  Historia  de  las  Ideas  Esteticas  en  Espana  to  remain  an 
unfinished  torso  ;  but  his  example  and  influence  have 
been  wholly  exercised  for  good,  and  are  evident  in  the 
excellent  work  of  the  younger  generation — the  work  of 


398  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

Emilio  Cotarelo  y  Mori,  of  Rafael  Altamira  y  Crevea,  of 
Ramon  Mene"ndez  Pidal.  It  would  be  a  singular  thing  if 
the  bright,  improvident  Spain,  which  to  most  of  us  stands 
for  the  embodiment  of  reckless  romanticism,  were  to 
produce  a  race  of  writers  of  the  German  type,  a  breed 
absorbed  in  detail  and  minute  observation  ;  and  as  a 
nation's  genius  is  no  more  subject  to  change  than  is  the 
temperament  of  individuals,  the  development  may  not 
come  to  pass.  But,  as  the  century  closes,  the  tendency 
inclines  that  way. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL "  NOTE' 


GEORGE  TlCKNOR'S  great  History  of  Spanish  Literature  (Boston, 
1872)  is  the  widest  survey  of  the  subject ;  it  should  be  read  in  the 
Castilian  version  of  Pascual  de  Gayangos  and  Enrique  de  Vedia 
(I85I-56),1  or  in  the  German  of  Nikolaus  Heinrich  Julius  (Leipzig, 
1852),  both  of  which  contain  valuable  supplementary  matter.  Ludwig 
Gustav  Lemcke  shows  taste  and  learning  and  independence  in  his 
Handbuch  der  spanischen  Literatur  (Leipzig,  1855-56).  On  a  smaller 
scale  are  Eugene  Baret's  Histoire  de  la  literature  espagnole  (1863), 
the  volume  contributed  by  Jacques  Claude  Bemogeot  to  Victor 
Duruy's  series  entitled  Histoire  des  literatures  etrangtres  (1880), 
Licurgo  Cappelletti's  Letteratura  spagnuola  (Milan,  1882),  and  Mr. 
H.  Butler  Clarke's  Spanish  Literature  (1893).  Ferdinand  Wolfs 
Studien  zur  Geschichte  der  spanischen  und  portugiesischen  National- 
literatur  (Berlin,  1859)  is  a  most  masterly  study  of  the  early  period  ; 
the  Castilian  version  by  D.  Miguel  de  Unamuno,  with  notes  by  D. 
Marcelino  Mene"ndez  y  Pelayo  (1895-96),  corrects  some  of  Wolfs 
conclusions  in  the  light  of  recent  research.  The  Darstellung  der 
spanischen  Literatur  im  Mittelalter  (Mainz,  1846),  by  Ludwig  Clarus, 
whose  real  name  was  Wilhelm  Volk,  is  learned  and  suggestive, 
though  too  enthusiastic  in  criticism.  Josd  Amador  de  los  Rfos'  seven 
volumes,  entitled  Historia  critica  de  la  literatura  espanola  (1861-65), 
end  with  the  reign  of  the  Catholic  Kings  :  an  alphabetical  index 
would  greatly  increase  the  value  of  this  monumental  work.  The 
Comte  Theodore  Joseph  Boudet  de  Puymaigre's  two  volumes,  Les 
•uieux  auteurs  castillans  (1888-90),  give  the  facts  in  a  very  agreeable, 
unpretentious  way. 

Among  current  handbooks  by  Spanish  authors,  those  by  Antonio 
Gil  y  Zdrate  (1844),  Manuel  de  la  Revilla  and  Pedro  de  Alcantara 

1  Unless  otherwise  stated,  it  is  to  be  understood  that,  of  the  books  named  in 
this  list,  the  Spanish  are  issued  at  Madrid,  the  English  at  London,  and  the  French 
at  Paris. 

399 


400  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Garcia  (1884),  F.  Sdnchez  de  Castro  (1890),  and  Prudencio  Mudarra 
y  Pdrraga  (Sevilla,  1895),  are  well-meant,  and  are,  one  hopes,  useful 
for  examination  purposes.  Jose  Ferndndez-Espino's  Curso  historico- 
critico  (Sevilla,  1871)  is  excellent  ;  but  it  ends  with  Cervantes'  prose 
works,  and  makes  no  reference  to  the  Spanish  theatre. 

On  the  drama  there  is  nothing  to  match  Adolf  Friedrich  von 
Schack's  Geschichte  der  dramatischen  Literatur  und  Kunst  in 
Spanien  (Berlin,  1845-46)  and  his  Nachtrage  (Frankfurt  am  Main, 
1854).  Romualdo  Alvarez  Espino's  Ensayo  histdrico-critico  del  teatro 
espanol  (Cddiz,  1876),  containing  long  extracts  from  the  chief  drama- 
tists, is  serviceable  to  beginners.  The  late  Cayetano  Barrera's  Catd- 
logo  bibliogrdfico  y  biogrdfico  del  teatro  antiguo  espanol  (1860)  is  in- 
valuable :  lack  of  funds  causes  the  supplement  to  remain  "  inedited." 

In  bibliography  Castilian  is  richer  than  English.  Nicola's  Antonio's 
Bibliotheca  Hispana  Nova  (1783-88)  and  Bibliotheca  Hispana  Vetus 
(1788)  are  wonderful  for  their  time.  Bartolome"  Jos£  Gallardo's 
Ensayo  de  una  Biblioteca  espanola  de  libros  raros  y  curiosos  (1863-89) 
owes  much  to  its  editors,  the  Marque's  de  la  Fuensanta  del  Valle  and 
D.  Jose"  Sancho  Raydn.  For  old  editions  Pedro  Salvd  y  Mallen's 
Catdlogo  de  la  biblioteca  de  Salvd  (Valencia,  1872)  may  be  consulted. 
An  admirable  monthly  bibliography  of  new  books  is  issued  by  D. 
Rafael  Altamira  y  Crevea  in  his  Revista  critica  de  historia  y  litera- 
tura  espaiiolas,  portuguesas  e"  hispano-americanas.  Murillo's  monthly 
Bolettn  is  a  mere  sale  list. 

M.  Foulche"-Delbosc's  Revue  hispanique  and  Sr.  Altamira's  Revista 
critica  are  specially  dedicated  to  our  subject ;  the  zeal  and  self- 
sacrifice  of  both  editors  have  earned  the  gratitude  of  all  students  of 
Spanish  literature.  MM.  Gaston  Paris'  and  Paul  Meyer's  Romania 
frequently  contains  admirable  essays  and  reviews  by  MM.  Morel- 
Fatio,  Cornu,  Cuervo,  and  others  ;  as  much  may  be  said  for  Gustav 
Grober's  Zeitschrift  fur  romanische  Philologie  (Halle),  and  for  the 
Giomale  storico  della  letteratura  italiana  (Torino),  edited  by  MM. 
Francesco  Novati  and  Rodolfo  Renier. 

Sr.  Menendez  y  Pelayo's  Historia  de  las  Ideas  esteticas  en  Espana 
(1883-91)  touches  literature  at  many  points,  and  abounds  in  acute 
and  suggestive  reflections.  Two  treatises  by  M.  Arturo  Farinelli,  Die 
Beziehungen  zwischen  Spanien  und  Deutschland  in  der  Litteratur  der 
beiden  Lander  (Berlin,  1892),  and  Spanien  und  die  spanische  Litteratur 
im  Lichte  der  deutschen  Kritik  und  Poesie  (Berlin,  1892),  are  remark- 
able for  curious  learning  and  appreciative  criticism. 

The  best  general  collection  of  classics  is   Manuel  Rivadeneyra's 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  401 

Biblioteca  de  Au tores  espanoles  (1846-80),  which  consists  of  seventy- 
nine  volumes.  Sr.  Menendez  y  Pelayo's  Antologia  de  poetas  Uricos 
castellanos  (1890-96)  is  supplied  with  very  learned  and  elaborate 
introductions. 


CHAPTER  I 

The  Leloaren  Cantua  and  Altobiskar  Cantua  are  given,  with 
English  renderings,  in  Mr.  Wentworth  Webster's  admirable  Basque 
Legends  (1879);  an  exposure  of  the  Altobiskar  hoax  by  the  same 
great  authority  is  printed  in  the  Academy  of  History's  Boletin  (1883). 
Rafael  and  Pedro  Rodriguez  Mohedano  display  much  discursive,  un- 
critical erudition  in  their  ten-volumed  Historia  literaria  en  Espaiia 
(1768-85),  which  deals  only  with  the  early  period.  A  recent  study 
(1888)  on  Prudentius  by  the  Conde  de  Vinaza  deserves  mention. 
Migne's  Patrologia  Latina  includes  the  chief  Spanish  Fathers.  In 
the  fourth  volume  of  Charles  Garner's  and  Arthur  Martin's  Nouveaux 
Melanges  d'archeologie,  d'histoire,  et  de  litterature  sur  le  moyen  dge 
(1877)  there  is  a  brilliant  essay  on  the  Gothic  period  by  the  Rev. 
Pere  Jules  Tailhan,  to  whom  we  also  owe  a  splendid  edition  of  the 
Rhymed  Chronicle,  the  Epitoma  Imptratorum  (Paris,  1885),  by  the 
Anonymous  Writer  of  Cordoba. 

For  the  Spanish  Jews,  Hirsch  Gratz'  Geschichte  der  Juden  von  den 
dltesten  Zeiten  bis  auf  die  Gegenwart  (Leipzig,  1865-90)  is  the  best 
guide.  Salomon  Munk's  Melanges  tie  philosophie  juivc  et  arabe 
(1857)  is  not  yet  superseded,  and  Abraham  Geiger's  Divan  des  Casti- 
lier  Abu  'I  Hassan  Juda  ha  Levi  (Breslau,  1851)  contains  information 
not  to  be  found  elsewhere.  M.  Kayserling's  Biblioteca  Espanola — 
Portugeza—Judaica  (Strassburg,  1890)  is  extremely  valuable. 

Two  works  by  Reinhart  Pieter  Anne  Dozy  are  authoritative  as 
regards  the  Arab  period  :  the  Histoire  des  Rfussulmans  d'Espagne 
(Leyde,  1861),  and  the  Recherches  sur  thistoire  politique  et  litte'raire 
de  r  Espagne  pendant  le  moyen  dge  (1881).  The  first  edition  of  the  Re- 
cherches (Leyde,  1849)  embodies  many  suggestive  passages  cancelled  in 
the  reprints.  Schack's  Poesie  und  Kunst  der  Araber  in  Spanien  und 
Sicilien  (Stuttgart,  1877)  is  a  good  general  survey,  a  little  too  enthu- 
siastic in  tone  ;  it  greatly  gains  in  the  Castilian  version,  made  from , 
the  first  edition,  by  D.  Juan  Valera  (1867-71).  Nicolas  Lucien 
Leclerc's  Histoire  de  la  me'decine  arabe  (1876)  is  of  much  wider  scope 
than  its  title  implies,  and  may  be  profitably  consulted  on  Arab 
achievements  in  other  fields.  Francisco  Javier  Simonet  states  the 


402  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

case  against  the  predominance  of  Arab  culture  in  the  preface  to  his 
Glosario  de  voces  ibe"ricas  y  latinas  usadas  entre  los  Muzdrabes  (1888). 
D.  Julian  Ribera's  learned  Ortgenes  de  la  justicia  en  Aragdn  (Zara- 
goza,  1897)  deals  with  the  facts  in  a  more  judicial  spirit.  Of  special 
monographs  Ernest  Renan:s  Averroes  et  F  Averroiisme  (1866)  is  a 
recognised  classic.  The  greater  part  of  the  codex  from  the  Convent 
of  Santo  Domingo  de  Silos,  now  in  the  British  Museum  (Add.  MSS. 
30,  853),  has  been  published  by  Dr.  Joseph  Priebsch  in  the  Zeitschrijt, 
vol.  xix. 

As  regards  the  Provencal  influence  in  the  Peninsula,  Manuel  MiM 
y  Fontanals'  'Irovadores  en  Espana  (Barcelona,  1887)  is  a  definitive 
work.  Eugene  Baret's  Espagne  et  Provence  (1857)  is  pleasing  but 
superficial.  Theophilo  Braga's  learned  introduction  to  the  Cancioneiro 
Portuguez  da  Vaticana  (Lisbon,  1878)  is  brilliantly  suggestive,  though 
inaccurate  in  detail.  The  counter-current  from  Northern  France,  as 
it  affects  the  epic,  is  treated  in  Mila  y  Fontanals'  Poesia  heroico- 
popular  castellana  (Barcelona,  1874). 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Misterio  de  los  Reyes  Magos  is  most  accessible  in  Amador  de 
los  Rfos'  Historia,  vol.  iii.  pp.  658-60,  and  in  K.  A.  Martin  Hart- 
mann's  dissertation,  Ueber  das  altspanische  Dreikonnigsspiel  { Bautzen, 
1879).  The  Swedish  scholar,  Eduard  Lidforss,  printed  the  Misterio 
in  the  Jahrbuch  fiir  romanische  und  englische  Literatur  (Leipzig, 
1871),  vol.  xii.,  and  Professor  Georg  Baist's  diplomatic  edition  ap- 
peared at  Erlangen  in  1 879.  Arturo  Grafs  Studii  drammatici  (Torino, 
1878)  contains  an  interesting  essay  on  the  Magi  play  ;  M.  Morel- 
Fatio's  article  in  Romania,  vol.  ix.,  and  Baist's  review  in  the  Zeii- 
schrift,  vol.  iv.,  are  both  important.  D'Ancona's  Origini  dd  teatro 
italiano  (Torino,  1891)  discusses  the  question  of  the  play's  date  with 
much  shrewdness  and  caution. 

The  most  convenient  reference  for  the  Poema  del  Cid  is  to  Riva- 
deneyra,  vol.  Ivii.  D.  Ramon  Menendez  Pidal's  edition  (1898)  super- 
sedes all  others  :  next,  in  order  of  merit,  come  Karl  Vollmoller's 
(Halle,  1879),  Eduard  Lidforss',  called  Cantares  de  Myo  Cid  (Lund, 
1895),  and  Mr.  Archer  Huntington's  (New  York,  1897).  The  Cantar 
de  Rodrigo  is  in  Rivadeneyra,  vol.  xvi.  ;  vol.  Ivii.  contains  the  Apolonio, 
the  Vida  de  Santa  Maria  Egipciacqua,  and  the  Tres  Reyes  dorient. 
The  sources  of  Santa  Maria  Egipciacqua  are  indicated  by  Adolf 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  403 

Mussafia  in  the  Sitzungsberichte  of  the  Vienna  Academy  of  Sciences, 
vol.  clxiii.  For  the  Disputa  del  Alma  y  Cuerpo  see  the  Zeitschrift, 
vol.  Ix.  M.  Morel-Fatio  edited  the  Debate  entre  el  Agua  y  el  Vino 
and  the  Razon  feita  de  Amor  in  Romania,  vol.  xvi.  Most  of  the 
foregoing  may  be  read  in  extract  in  Egidio  Gorra's  excellent  antho- 
logy, Lingua  e  Letteratura  Spagnuola  delle  origini  (Milan,  1898). 


CHAPTER  III 

Most  of  the  writers  referred  to  in  this  chapter  are  included  in 
Rivadeneyra,  vols.  li.  and  Ivii.  A  valuable  article  on  Berceo  by  D. 
Francisco  Fernandez  y  Gonzalez,  now  Dean  of  the  Central  Univer- 
sity, was  published  in  La  Razon  (1857)  :  a  translated  fragment  of 
Berceo  is  given  by  Longfellow  in  Outre-Mer.  Gautier  de  Coinci's 
Les  tirades  de  la  Sainte  Vierge  were  edited  by  the  Abbe  Alexandre 
Eusebe  Poquet  (1857)  in  a  somewhat  prudish  spirit.  M.  Morel- 
Fatio's  study  on  the  Libro  de  Alexandre,  printed  in  the  fourth  volume 
of  Romania,  is  an  extremely  thorough  performance. 

Alfonso's  Siete  Partidas  (1807)  and  the  Fuero  Juzgo  (1815)  have 
been  issued  by  the  Spanish  Academy  ;  his  scientific  work  is  partially 
represented  by  Manuel  Rico  y  Sinobas'  five  folios  entitled  Libras  del 
Saber  de  Astronomia  (1863-67).  There  is  no  modern  edition  of  his 
histories,  and  a  reprint  is  greatly  needed  :  the  inaugural  speech  of 
D.  Juan  Facundo  Riano,  read  before  the  Academy  of  History  (1869), 
traces  the  sources  with  great  ability  and  learning.  The  translations 
in  which  Alfonso  shared  are  best  read  in  Hermann  Knust's  Mittei- 
lungen  aus  dem  Eskorial  (vol.  cxli.  of  the  publications  issued  by  the 
Stuttgart  Literarischer  Verein),  and  in  Knust's  Dos  Obras  diddcticas y 
dos  Leyendas  (1878).  Alfonso's  Cantigas  de  Santa  Maria  have  been 
published  by  the  Spanish  Academy  (1889)  in  two  of  the  handsomest 
volumes  ever  printed  ;  the  Marque's  de  Valmar  has  edited  the  text, 
and  supplied  an  admirable  introduction  and  apparatus. 

Fadrique's  Engannos  e  Assayamientos  de  las  Mogieres  is  to  be 
sought  in  Domenico  Comparetti's  Ricerche  intorno  al  libro  di  Sin- 
dibad(  Milan,  1869).  The  questions  arising  out  of  the  Gran  Conquista. 
de  Ultramar  are  discussed  by  M.  Gaston  Paris,  with  his  usual  lucidity 
and  learning,  in  Romania,  vols.  xvii.,  xix.,  and  xxii. 


404  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


CHAPTER  IV 

Most  of  the  poems  mentioned  are  printed  in  Rivadeneyra,  vol.  Ivii. 
Solomon 's  Rhymed  Proverbs  are  included  by  Antonio  Paz  y  Melia  in 
Opusculos  literarios  de  los  siglos  XIV.-XVJ.  (1892).  The  Poema  de 
/os/  has  been  reproduced  in  Arabic  characters  by  Heinrich  Morf 
(Leipzig,  1883)  as  part  of  a  Gratulationsschrift  from  the  University 
of  Bern  to  that  of  Zurich. 

Juan  Manuel's  writings  were  edited  by  Gayangos  in  Rivadeneyra, 
vol.  li.  :  we  owe  his  Libro  de  Caza  to  Professor  Georg  Baist  (Halle, 
1880),  and  a  valuable  edition  of  the  Libro  del  Caballero  et  del  Escudero 
to  S.  Grafenberg  (Erlangen,  1883).  Alfonso  XL's  handbook  on 
hunting  is  given  by  Gutierrez  de  la  Vega  in  the  third  volume  of  the 
Biblioteca  Venatoria  (Madrid,  1879).  Ayala's  history  forms  vols.  i. 
and  ii.  of  Eugenic  de  Llaguno  Amirola's  Cronicas  Espanolas  (Madrid, 
1779)- 

CHAPTER  V 

The  Comte  de  Puymaigre's  La  Cour  litte"raire  de  Don  Juan  IL 
(1873)  is  an  excellent  general  view  of  the  subject.  D.  Emilio  Cotarelo 
y  Mori's  Don  Enrique  de  Villena  (1896)  is  a  very  learned  and  interest- 
ing study.  Villena's  Arte  Cisoria  was  reprinted  so  recently  as  1879. 
The  Libro  de  los  Gatos  and  Clemente  Sanchez'  Enxemplos  are  in 
Rivadeneyra,  vol.  li. ;  the  latter  were  completed  by  M.  Morel-Fatio 
in  Romania^  vol.  vii.  Mr.  Thomas  Frederick  Crane's  Excmpla  of 
Jacques  Vitry  (published  in  1890  for  the  Folk- Lore  Society)  will  be 
found  useful  by  English  readers. 

Baena's  Candonero  (1851)  was  edited  by  the  late  Marque's  de  Pidal  : 
the  large-paper  copies  contain  a  few  loose  pieces,  omitted  from  the 
ordinary  edition  which  was  reprinted  by  Brockhaus  in  a  cheap  form 
at  Leipzig  in  1860.  D.  Antonio  Paz  y  Melia's  Obras  de  Juan  Rodri- 
guez de  la  Cdmara  (1884)  is  a  good  example  of  this  scholar's  con- 
scientious work.  Amador  de  los  Rfos'  edition  of  the  Obras  del 
Marque's  de  Santillana  (1852)  is  complete  and  minute  in  detail. 

There  is  no  good  edition  of  Juan  de  Mena's  works  ;  I  have  found  it 
most  convenient  to  use  that  published  by  Francisco  Sanchez  (1804). 
The  Coplas  de  la  Panadera  will  be  found  in  Gallardo,  vol.  i.  cols. 

613-617- 

Juan  II.'s  Crdnica  is  printed  by  Rivadeneyra,  vol.  Iviii.  ;  the  others 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  405 

• — those  of  Clavijo,  Gdmez,  Lena — are  in  Llaguno  y  Amirola's  Crdnicas 
Espanolas,  already  named.  Llaguno  also  reprinted  Pe"rez  de  Guzman's 
Generaciones  at  Valencia  in  1790. 

No  modern  editor  has  had  the  spirit  to  reissue  Martinez  de  Toledo's 
Corbacho,  nor  did  even  Ticknor  possess  a  copy.  The  edition  of 
Logrono  (1529)  is  convenient.  The  Visidn  deleitable  is  in  Rivade- 
neyra,  vol.  xxxvi.  I  know  no  later  edition  of  Lucena's  Vita  Beata 
than  that  of  Zamora,  1483. 

CHAPTER  VI 

Hernando  del  Castillo's  Cancionero  General  should  be  read  in  the 
fine  edition  (1882)  published  by  the  Sociedad  de  Bibliofilos  Espafioles  ; 
the  Cancionero  de  burlas  in  Luis  de  Usoz  y  Rio's  reprint  (London, 
1841).  The  Marques  de  la  Fuensanta  del  Valle  and  D.  Jose  Sancho 
Rayon  edited  Lope  de  Stuniga's  Cancionero  in  1872.  While  the 
present  volume  has  been  passing  through  the  press,  M.  Foulche'- 
Delbosc  has,  for  the  first  time,  published  the  entire  text  of  the  Coplas 
del  Provincial  in  the  Revue  hispanique,  vol.  v.  The  Coplas  de  Mingo 
Revulgo,  Cota's  Didlogo,  and  Jorge  Manrique's  Coplas  are  best  read 
in  D.  Marcelino  Mene*ndez  y  Pelayo's  Antologia,  vols.  iii.  and  iv. 
An  additional  piece  of  Cota's,  discovered  by  M.  Foulche"-Delbosc,  has 
been  printed  in  the  Revue  hispanique,  vol.  i.  ;  and  to  D.  Antonio  Paz 
y  Melia  is  due  the  publication  of  G6mez  Manrique's  Cancionero  (1885). 
Inigo  de  Mendoza  and  Ambrosio  Montesino  are  represented  in  Riva- 
deneyra,  vol.  xxxv.  Miguel  del  Riego  y  Nunez'  edition  of  Padilla 
appeared  at  London  in  1841  in  the  Coleccidn  de  obras  poSticas  espanolas. 
Pedro  de  Urrea's  Cancionero  (1876)  forms  the  second  volume  of  the 
Biblioteca  de  Escritores  Aragoneses.  Encina's  Teatro  complete  has 
been  admirably  edited  (1893)  by  Francisco  Asenjo  Barbieri :  a  sug- 
gestive and  penetrating  criticism  by  Sr.  Cotarelo  y  Mori  appeared  in 
Espaiia  Moderna  (May  1894). 

Palencia  is  to  be  studied  sufficiently  in  his  Dos  Tratados  (1876), 
arranged  by  D.  Antonio  Maria  Fable".  The  Cronica  of  Lucas  Iranzo 
was  given  by  the  Academy  of  History  (1853)  in  the  Memorial  his  I  orico 
espanol,  Amadis  de  Gaula  is  most  easily  read  in  Rivadeneyra,  vol. 
xl.,  which  is  preceded  by  a  very  instructive  preface,  the  work  of 
Gayangos.  The  derivation  of  the  Amadis  romance  is  ably  discussed 
from  different  points  of  view  by  Eugene  Baret  in  his  Etudes  sur  la 
redaction  espagnole  de  F  Amadis  de  Gaule  (1853);  by  Theophilo 
Braga  in  his  Historia  das  novelas  portuguezas  de  cavalleria  (Portft, 


406  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1873)  ;  and  by  Luclwig  Braunfels  in  his  Kritischer  Versuch  iiber  den 
Roman  Amadis  von  Gallien  (Leipzig,  1876).  The  fourth  volume  of 
Ormsby's  Don  Quixote  (1885)  contains  an  exhaustive  bibliography  of 
the  chivalresque  novels,  most  of  which  are  both  costly  and  worth- 
less. Of  the  Celcstina.  there  are  innumerable  editions  ;  the  handiest 
is  that  in  Rivadeneyra,  vol.  iii.  A  reprint  of  Mabbe's  splendid  English 
version  (1631)  was  included  by  Mr.  Henley  in  his  Tudor  Translations 
(1894).  D.  Marcelino  Mene"ndez  y  Pelayo's  brilliant  essay  on  Rojas 
is  reprinted  in  the  second  series  of  his  Estudios  de  critica  literaria 
(1895).  Bernaldez'  Historia  de  los  Reyes  catolicos  (Granada,  1856)  has 
been  carefully  produced  by  Miguel  Lafuente  y  Alcantara.  Pulgar's 
Claras  Varones  was  inserted  at  the  end  of  Llaguno  y  Amirola's  edition 
of  the  Centon  epistolario  (1775).  It  is  quite  impossible  to  give  any 
notion  of  the  immense  mass  of  literature  concerning  Columbus  ;  but 
anything  bearing  the  names  of  Martin  Fernandez  de  Navarrete  or  of 
Mr.  Henry  Harrisse  is  entitled  to  the  greatest  respect. 


CHAPTER   VII 

M.  Morel-Fatio's  DEspagne  au  16'  el  17'  sihle  (Heilbronn,  1878) 
is  invaluable  for  this  period  and  the  succeeding  century.  Dr.  Adam 
Schneider's  Spaniens  Anteil  an  der  deutschen  Litteratur  des  16.  und 
17.  Jahrhunderts  (Strassburg,  1898)  is  a  work  of  immense  industry, 
containing  much  curious  information  in  a  convenient  form.  English 
readers  will  find  an  excellent  summary  of  the  literary  history  of  this 
time  in  Mr.  David  Hannay's  Later  Renaissance  (1898). 

Manuel  Cafiete,  whose  Teatro  espanol  del  siglo  XVI.  (1885)  is 
useful  but  ill  arranged,  included  a  single  volume  of  Torres  Naharro's 
Propaladia  among  the  Libras  de  Antaiio  so  long  ago  as  1880;  the 
second  is  still  to  come,  and  those  who  would  read  this  dramatist  must 
turn  to  the  rare  sixteenth-century  editions.  Perhaps  the  best  reprint 
of  Gil  Vicente  is  that  issued  at  Hamburg  in  1834  by  Jose"  Victorino 
Barreto  Feio  and  Jose"  Gomes  Monteiro  ;  a  most  complete  account 
of  Vicente,  his  environment  and  influence,  is  given  by  Theophilo 
Braga  in  the  seventh  volume  of  his  learned  Historia  de  la  littera- 
tura  portuguesa  (Porto,  1898).  Boscdn's  Castilian  version  of  the 
Cortegiano  was  reissued  in  1873  ;  the  completest  edition  of  his  verse 
is  that  published  by  Professor  Knapp  (of  Yale  University),  issued  at 
Madrid  in  1 873.  Professor  Flamini's  Studi  di  storia  letteraria  italiana 
e  straniera  (Livorno,  1895)  contains  a  very  scholarly  essay  on  the 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  407 

debt  of  Boscdn  to  Bernardo  Tasso.  The  poems  of  Garcilaso  are  in 
Rivadeneyra,  vols.  xxxii.  and  xlii. ;  but  a  far  pleasanter  book  to  handle 
is  Azara's  edition  (1765).  Benedetto  Croce's  study  entitled  Intorno 
al  soggiorno  di  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega  in  Italia  (1894)  appeared  origin- 
ally in  the  Rassegna  storica  napoletana  di  lettere  ed  arte  (a  magazine 
which  deserves  to  be  better  known  in  England  than  it  is).  Croce's 
researches  have  been  printed  apart,  and  we  may  look  forward  to 
his  publishing  others  no  less  important.  Jeremiah  Holmes  Wiffen's 
biography  and  translation  of  Garcilaso  (1823)  are  defective,  but 
nothing  better  exists  in  English.  Few  poets  in  the  world  have  been 
so  fortunate  in  their  editors  as  Sa  de  Miranda.  Mme.  Carolina 
Michaelis  de  Vasconcellos'  reprint  (Halle,  1881),  with  its  very  learned 
apparatus  of  introduction,  notes,  and  variants,  is  a  real  achievement 
unsurpassed  in  the  history  of  editing.  A  fine  edition  of  Gutierre  de 
Cetina  has  been  published  (Seville,  1895)  with  a  scholarly  introduction 
by  D.  Joaquin  Hazanas  y  la  Rua.  Acuna's  works  appeared  at  Madrid 
in  1804  ;  his  Contienda  de  Ayax  is  in  the  second  volume  of  Ldpez  de 
Sedano's  Parnaso  Espaiiol  (1778).  Concerning  Mendoza,  the  reader 
may  profitably  turn  to  Charles  Graux'  Essai  sur  les  origines  du  fona 
grec  de  PEscorial  (1880),  published  in  the  Bibliotheque  de  FEcole  des 
Hautes  Etudes.  Professor  Knapp  edited  Mendoza's  verses  in  1877: 
a  creditable  piece  of  work,  though  inferior  to  his  edition  of  Boscan. 
Castillejo  and  Silvestre  are  exampled  in  Rivadeneyra,  vol.  xxxii.  Of 
Villegas'  Inventario  there  is  no  modern  reprint. 

Guevara  is  sufficiently  represented  in  Rivadeneyra,  vol.  Ixv. ;  the 
English  versions  by  Lord  Berners,  North,  Fenton,  Hellowes,  and 
others,  are  of  exceptional  merit  and  interest. 

The  most  important  historians  of  the  Indies  are  reprinted  by 
Rivadeneyra,  vols.  xxii.  and  xxvi.  Amador  de  los  Rios  edited  Oviedo 
for  the  Academy  of  History  in  1851-55.  Very  full  details  con- 
cerning Corte"s  are  given  by  Prescott  in  his  classic  book  on  Peru, 
and  Sir  Arthur  Helps'  Life  of  Las  Casas  (1868)  is  a  pleasing  piece  of 
partisanship. 

Lazarillo  de  Tormes  should  be  read  in  Mr.  Butler  Clarke's  beautiful 
reproduction  of  the  princeps  (1897).  M.  Morel-Fatio's  essay  in  the 
first  series  of  his  Etudes  surPEspagne  (1895)  is  exceedingly  ingenious, 
but,  like  all  negative  criticism,  it  is  somewhat  unconvincing.  His 
guess  that  Lazarillo  was  written  by  some  one  connected  with  the 
Valde"s  clique  does  not  seem  very  happy,  but  even  a  conjecture  by 
M.  Morel-Fatio  carries  great  weight. 

Eduard  Bohmer  gives  a  very  full  bibliography  of  Juan  de  Valdes 
27 


408  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

in  his  Biblioteca  Wiffeniana  (Strassburg,  1874).  Benjamin  Barren 
Wiffen  had  for  Valde"s  a  kind  of  cult  which  found  partial  expression 
in  his  quarto  Life  and  Writings  of  Juan  Valdh^  otherwise  Valdesio 
(1865).  But  it  is  impossible  to  give  more  minute  references  to  the 
voluminous  literature  which  deals  with  Valdes  and  his  brother  Alfonso. 
An  historical  essay  by  Manuel  Carrasco,  published  at  Geneva  in  1880, 
is  interesting  as  the  work  of  a  modern  Spanish  Protestant. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Marques  de  la  Fuensanta  del  Valle's  edition  of  Lope  de  Rueda 
(1894)  lacks  an  introduction,  but  it  is  in  other  respects  as  good  as 
possible.  D.  Angel  Lasso  de  la  Vega  y  Arguelles  has  published  a 
Historia  y  Juicio  critico  de  la  Escuela  Pottica  Sevillana  (1871),  which 
is  useful,  and  even  exhaustive,  though  far  too  eulogistic  in  tone.  The 
Argensolas  may  be  conveniently  studied  in  Rivadeneyra,  vol.  xlii.,  which 
is  supplemented  by  the  Conde  de  Vinaza's  collection  of  the  Poesias 
sueltas  (1889).  Minor  dramatists  still  await  republication.  Herrera 
is  easiest  read  in  Rivadeneyra,  vol.  xxxii. ;  M.  Morel- Fatio's  critical 
edition  of  the  Lepanto  Ode  (Paris,  1893)  is  of  great  merit,  and  an 
essay  on  Herrera  by  M.  Edouard  Bourciez  in  the  Annales  de  la 
Faculty  des  lettres  de  Bordeaux  (1891)  is  acute  and  suggestive. 
Vicente  de  la  Fuente  is  the  editor  of  Santa  Teresa's  writings  in  Riva- 
deneyra, vols.  liii.  and  Iv.  The  biography  by  Mrs.  Cunninghame 
Graham  (1894),  a  work  both  learned  and  picturesque,  presents  rather 
the  woman  of  genius  than  the  canonised  saint.  The  text  of  the 
remaining  mystics  will,  with  few  exceptions,  be  found  in  Rivadeneyra, 
vols.  vi.,  viii.,  ix.,  xxvii.,  and  xxxii.  The  lesser  lights  exist  only  in 
editions  of  great  rarity. 

Torre's  verses  are  most  accessible  in  Velazquez*  edition  (1753). 
Of  Figueroa  there  is  no  recent  reprint,  though  a  poor  selection  is 
offered  by  Rivadeneyra,  vol.  xlii.,  which  also  includes  Rufo  Gutierrez' 
minor  verse :  his  Austriada  is  given  in  vol.  xxix.,  and  Ercilla's 
Araucana  in  vol.  xvii.  The  Catdlogo  razonado  biogrdfico  y  biblio- 
grdfico  of  the  Portuguese  authors  who  wrote  in  Spanish  is  due  (1890) 
to  Domingo  Garcia  Peres.  The  Barcelona  reprint  (1886)  of  Montemor 
is  easily  found:  Professor  Hugo  Albert  Rennert's  monograph,  1 he 
Spanish  Pastoral  Romances  (Baltimore,  1892),  is  extremely  thoroiv -h. 
Zurita  is  best  read  in  the  princeps*  A  new  edition  of  Mendoza's 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  409 

Guerra  de  Granada  is  urgently  called  for,  and  is  now  being  passed 
through  the  press  by  M.  Foulche-Delbosc.  Mendoza's  burlesque  of 
Silva  will  be  found  in  Paz  y  Melia's  Sales  Espanolas  (1890). 


CHAPTER  IX 

Henceforward  the  task  of  the  bibliographer  is  lighter  ;  for,  though 
Cervantes,  Lope,  and  later  writers  are  the  subjects  of  an  enormous 
mass  of  literature,  and  are  reprinted  in  editions  out  of  number,  it  will 
only  be  necessary  to  name  the  most  important.  The  twelve  quartos 
which 'form  the  Obras  Completas  (1863-64)  of  Cervantes  are  open  to 
much  damaging  criticism  ;  but  they  contain  all  his  writings,  except 
the  conjectural  pieces  gathered  together  by  D.  Adolfo  de  Castro  in 
his  Varias  obras  ineditas  de  Cervantes  (1874).  For  a  most  exhaustive 
bibliography  of  Cervantes'  writings  (Barcelona,  1895)  we  are  indebted 
to  the  late  D.  Leopoldo  Rius  y  Llosellas  :  a  posthumous  volume  is  to 
follow,  but  even  in  its  present  incomplete  state  Rius'  book  is  worth 
more  than  all  previous  attempts  put  together.  Editions  of  Don 
Quixote  abound,  and  of  these  Diego  Clemencin's  (1833-39)  deserves 
special  mention  for  its  very  learned  commentary.  A  new  edition,  in 
course  of  issue  by  Mr.  David  Nutt  (1898),  presents  a  text  freed  from 
arbitrary  emendations  which  have  crept  in  without  authority.  Fer- 
n£ndez  de  Navarrete's  biography  (1819)  is  still  unequalled.  Shelton's 
early  English  version  (1612-20)  has  been  reprinted  by  Mr.  Henley 
in  his  series  of  Tudor  Translations  (1896).  Of  later  renderings  John 
Ormsby's  (1885)  is  much  the  best,  and  is  prefaced  by  a  very  judicious 
account  of  Cervantes  and  his  work.  Duffield  (1881)  and  Mr.  H.  E. 
Watts  (1894)  have  translated  Don  Quixote  in  a  spirit  of  enthusiasm. 
The  Numantia  (1885)  and  Viaje  del  Parnaso  (1883)  were  both  admir- 
ably rendered  by  the  late  James  Young  Gibson.  Sr.  Mene*ndez  y 
Pelayo's  paper  on  Avellaneda  appeared  in  Los  Lunes  de  El  Impartial 
(February  15,  1897). 

The  Obras  of  Lope,  now  printing  under  the  editorship  of  D. 
Marcelino  Mendndez  y  Pelayo,  will  be  definitive  ;  but  as  yet  only  eight 
quartos  (including  Barrera's  Nueva  Biografia)  are  available.  Lope's 
Obras  sueltas  (1776-79)  fill  twenty-one  volumes;  but  the  best  refer- 
ence for  readers  is  to  Rivadeneyra,  vols.  xxiv.,  xxxv.,  xxxvii.,  xli.,  and 
xlii.,  where  Lope  is  incompletely  but  sufficiently  exhibited.  M.  Arturo 
Farinelli's  Grillparzer  und  Lope  de  Vega  (Berlin,  1894)  is  most  excel- 


410  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

lent.  Edmund  Borer's  Die  Lope-de-  Vega  Litteratur  in  Deutschland 
(1877)  is  a  praiseworthy  compilation.  Ormsby's  article  in  the  Quarterly 
Review  (October  11894)  is,  as  might  be  expected  from  him,  most  exact 
and  learned.  I  am  especially  indebted  to  it. 

As  to  the  picaresque  novels,  Guzntdn  is  in  Rivadeneyra,  vol.  iii.  ; 
the  Picara  Justina  in  vol.  xxxiii.,  and  Marcos  de  Gbregdn  in  vol.  xviii. 
A  thoughtful  and  appreciative  study  on  Mateo  Alema'n  has  been 
privately  printed  at  Seville  (1892)  by  D.  Joaquin  Hazanas  y  la  Rua. 
Antonio  Pe"rez  and  Gine"s  Pe'rez  de  Hita  are  to  be  read  in  Rivade- 
neyra, vols.  xiii.  and  iii. :  Mariana  fills  vols.  xxx.  and  xxxi.,  but  the  two 
noble  folios  of  1780  are  in  every  way  preferable. 


CHAPTER  X 

The  early  editions  of  Gongora  are  named  in  the  text ;  Rivadeneyra, 
vol.  xxxii.,  reprints  him  in  unsatisfactory  fashion,  but  there  is  nothing 
better.  Forty-nine  inedited  pieces  by  Gongora  have  been  recently 
published  by  Professor  Rennert  in  the  Revue  hispanique,  vol.  iv. 
Churton's  essay  on  Gongora  (1862)  is  learned,  spirited,  and  interest- 
ing. Villamediana  figures  in  Rivadeneyra's  forty-second  volume  : 
D.  Emilio  Cotarelo  y  Mori's  minute  and  judicious  study  (1886)  is  ex- 
tremely important.  Lasso  de  la  Vega's  monograph,  already  cited, 
on  the  Sevillan  school,  should  be  consulted  for  the  poets  of  that 
group.  Villegas  and  the  minor  poets  may  be  read  in  Rivadeneyra, 
vol.  xlii.  Rioja  has  been  admirably  edited  by  Barrera  (1867),  who 
has  supplied  a  most  scholarly  biography  and  bibliography :  the 
additional  poems  issued  in  1872  are  more  curious  than  valuable. 
Quevedo's  prose  works  were  edited  by  Aureliano  Fernlndez-Guerra 
y  Orbe  with  great  skill  and  accuracy  in  Rivadeneyra,  vols.  xxiii.  and 
xlviii. ;  his  verse  has  been  printed  in  vol.  Ixix.  by  Florencio  Janer, 
who  was  not  the  man  for  the  task.  The  new  and  complete  edition, 
issued  by  the  Sociedad  de  Bibliofilos  Andaluces,  and  edited  by  D. 
Marcelino  Mene"ndez  y  Pelayo,  promises  to  be  admirable,  and  will 
include  much  new  matter — for  instance,  a  pure  text  of  the  Buscon.  As 
yet  but  one  volume  (1898)  has  been  issued  to  subscribers.  M.  Ernest 
Merime'e,  the  author  of  an  excellent  monograph  on  Quevedo  (1886), 
has  given  us  a  critical  edition  of  Castro's  Mocedades  del  Cid  (Toulouse, 
1890).  V&ez  de  Guevara  and  Montalbdn  are  exampled  in  Rivade- 
neyra, vol.  xlv.  :  the  prose  of  the  former  is  in  vol.  xviii. 

Hartzenbusch's  twelve-volume  edition  of  Tirso  de  Molina  (1839-42) 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  411 

is  incomplete,  but  it  is  greatly  superior  to  the  selection  in  Rivade- 
neyra,  vol.  v.  D.  Emilio  Cotarelo  y  Mori's  monograph  on  Tirso 
(1893)  contains  many  new  facts,  stated  with  great  precision  and 
lucidity.  Hartzenbusch's  edition  of  Ruiz  de  Alarcon  in  Rivadeneyra, 
vo  .  xx.,  is  the  best  and  fullest. 

Calderon's  editions  are  numerous,  but  none  are  really  good.  Keil's 
(Leipzig,  1827)  is  the  most  complete  ;  Hartzenbusch's,  which  fills 
vols.  vii.,  ix.,  xii.,  and  xiv.  of  Rivadeneyra,  is  the  easiest  to  obtain, 
and  is  sufficient  for  most  purposes.  Mr.  Norman  MacColl's  Select 
Plays  of  Calderon  (1888)  deserves  special  mention  for  its  excellent 
introduction  and  judicious  notes.  M.  Morel- Fatio's  edition  of  El 
MAgico  Prodigioso  is  a  model  of  skill  and  accuracy.  Two  small  col- 
lections of  Calderon's  verse  were  published  at  Ccidiz,  1845,  and  at 
Madrid,  1881.  Archbishop  Trench's  monograph  (1880)  and  Miss 
E.  J.  Hasell's  study  (1879)  are  deservedly  well  known.  D.  Marcelino 
Mene"ndez  y  Pelayo's  lectures,  Calderon  y  su  Teatro  (1881)  are  full  of 
sound,  impartial  criticism.  Friedrich  Wilhelm  Valentin  Schmidt's 
Die  Schauspiele  Calderon 's  (Elberfeld,  1857)  maintains  its  place  by 
virtue  of  its  sound  and  sympathetic  criticism.  The  history  of  the  autos 
is  fully  given  by  Eduardo  Gonzalez  Pedroso  in  Rivadeneyra,  vol.  Iviii. 
Edmund  Borer's  Die  Calderon- Litleratur  in  Deutschland  (Leipzig, 

1881)  is  useful  and  unpretending.      D.   Antonio    Sanchez  Moguel's 
study  (1881)   of  the   relation   between   the  Mdgico  Prodigioso  and 
Goethe's  Faust  is  learned  and  ingenious,  and  D.  Antonio  Rubio  y 
Lluch's  Sentimiento  del  }lonor  en  el  Teatro  de  Calderon  (Barcelona, 

1882)  is  a  very  suggestive  essay. 

The  select  plays  of  Rojas  Zorrilla  and  Moreto  are  contained  in 
Rivadeneyra,  vols.  xxxix.  and  liv.  There  exists  no  good  edition  of 
Gracian  :  Carl  Borinski's  study  entitled  Baltasar  Gracidn  und  die 
Hoflitteratur  in  Deutschland  (Halle,  1894)  is  a  very  commendable 
book,  and  M.  Arturo  Farinelli's  criticism  in  the  Revista  critica,  vol. 
ii.,  is  not  only  learned,  but  is  warm  in  its  appreciation  of  Gracidn's 
perverse  talent. 


CHAPTER  XI 

An  almost  complete  record  of  eighteenth-century  literature  is  sup- 
plied by  Sr.  D.  Leopoldo  Augusto  de  Cueto,  Marques  de  Valmar,  in 
his  Historica  Critica  de  lapoesia  caste  liana  en  el  siglo  XVIII.  (1893), 
a  revised  and  augmented  edition  of  the  classic  preface  to  Rivadeneyra, 


412  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

vols.  Ixi.,  Ixiii.,  and  Ixvii.  D.  Emilio  Cotarelo  y  Mori's  invaluable 
Iriarte  y  su  e"poca  (1897)  sheds  much  light  on  the  literary  history  of 
the  period,  and  D.  Marcelino  Mene"ndez  y  Pelayo's  Historia  de  las 
Ideas  esttticas  en  Espana  (vol.  iii.  part  ii.,  1886)  should  be  read  as  a 
complement  to  all  other  works.  Antonio  Maria  Alcald  Galiano's 
Historia  de  la  literatura  espanola,  francesa,  tnglesa,  /  italiano  en  el 
siglo  XVI I  I.  (1845)  is  acute,  but  somewhat  obsolete.  I  should 
recommend  as  an  honest,  useful  monograph  the  life  of  Sarmiento 
published  under  the  title  of  El  Gran  Gallego  (La  Coruna,  1895)  by 
D.  Antolin  Lopez  Pelaez. 


CHAPTERS  XII  AND  XIII 

The  only  summary  of  the  period  is  Padre  Francisco  Blanco  Garcfa's 
Literatura  Espaiiola  en  el  siglo  XIX.  (1891):  it  is  extremely  un- 
critical, and  is  marred  by  violent  personal  prejudices  intemperately 
expressed.  But  it  has  the  merit  of  existing,  and  embodies  useful 
information  in  the  way  of  facts.  Gustave  Hubbard's  Histoire  de  la 
literature  conttmporaine  en  Espagne  (1876)  and  Boris  de  Tannen- 
berg's  La  Pohie  castellane  contemporaine  (1892)  are  pleasant  but 
slight.  Pedro  de  Novo  y  Colsdn's  Autores  dramdticos  contemporaneos 
yjoyas  del  teatro  espanol  del  siglo  XIX.  (1881-85),  w'th  a  preface  by 
Antonio  Canovas  del  Castillo,  is  conscientiously  put  together,  and  will 
be  found  very  serviceable. 


INDEX 


ABARBANEL,  Judas,  131,  219 
Abraham  ben  David,  19 
Acuna,  Fernando  de,  149-150 
Adenet  le  Roi,  41 
Alabanza  de  Mahoma,  20 
Alarcon,  Pedro  Antonio  de,  381-382 
Alas,  Leopoldo,  391-392 
Alba,  Bartolome,  257 
Alcala,  Alfonso  de,  130 
Alcala  y  Herrera,  Alonso  de,  338 
Alcazar,  Baltasar  de,  176 
Aleman,  Mateo,  264-267 
Alexander,  Letters  of,  63,  65 
Alexandre,  Libra  de,  62,  63,  65 
Alfonso  II.  of  Aragon,  28,  29 
Alfonso  the  Learned,  28,  30,  38,  60, 

63-72 

Alfonso  XL,  85 
Aljamia,  19-20 

Altamira  y  Crevea,  Rafael,  398 
Altobiskarko  CantTta,  2 
Al-Tufail,  12 

Alvarez  de  Ayllon,  Pero,  165 
Alvarez  de  Cienfuegos,  Nicasio,  359 
Alvarez  de  Toledo,  Gabriel,  346 
Alvarez    de    Villasandino,    Alfonso, 
/  26,  31 

Alvarez  Gato,  Juan,  112 
Amadisde  Gaula,  91,  97, 106, 123-124 
Amadis  de  Grecia,  1 06,  157 
Amador  de  los  Rios,  Jose,  34,  43,  107 
Amalteo,  Giovanni  Battista,  186 
Anales  Toledanos,  62 
Andujar,  Juan  de,  109 
Angeles,  Juan  de  los,  202 


Angulo  y  Pulgar,  Martin  de,  291 

Ansfis  de  Carthage,  41 

Antonio,  Nicolas,  343 

Apolonio,  Libra  de,  20,  30,  38,  53-54 

Arab  influence,  14-19 

Arevalo,  Faustino,  II 

Argensola.  See  Leonardo  de  Argensola 

Argote,  Juan  de,  280 

Argote  y  G6ngora,  Luis,  143, 233,  250, 
270,  276,  279-294 

Arguijo,  Juan  de,  298 

Arias  Montano,  Benito,  181,  202- 
203,  272 

Artieda.     See  Rey  de  Artieda 

Asenjo  Barbieri,  Francisco,  19,  131, 
250 

Avellaneda.  See  Fernandez  de  Avel- 
laneda 

Avellaneda.  See  Gomez  de  Avel- 
laneda 

Avempace,  12 

Avendano,  Francisco  de,  170 

Averroes,  12 

Avicebron,  n,  17,  18 

Avila,  Juan  de,  161 

Avila  y  Zuniga,  Luis,  156 

Aviles,  Fuero  de,  24 

Axular,  Pedro  de,  3 

Ayala.     See  Lopez  de  Ayala 

Azemar,  Guilhem,  36 

BAENA,  Juan  Alfonso  de,  95,  96 

Baist,  Professor,  82 

Balbus,  5 

Balmes  y  Uspia,  Jaime,  382 


413 


414 


INDEX 


Bances  Candamo,  Francisco  Antonio, 

335 

Barahona  de  Soto,  Luis,  189,  270 
Barcelo,  Francisco,  118 
Barlaam   and  fosaphat,   Legend  of, 

83,96 
Barrera  y  Leirado,  Cayetano  Alberto 

de  la,  242,  244 
Barrientos,  Lope  de,  95. 
Basque  influence,  3-4 
Baudouin,  Jean,  233 
Bavia,  Luis  de,  286 
Bechada,  Gregoire  de,  72 
Be"cquer,  Gustavo  Adolfo,  377-378 
Bedier,  M.  Joseph,  16 
Belianls  de  Grecia,  1 58 
Belmonte  y  Bermudez,  Luis,  314 
Bembo,  Pietro,  144 
Berague,  Pedro  de,  87 
Berceo,    Gonzalo    de,    27,    28,    29, 

57-6i 
Beristain    de    Souza    Fernandez    de 

Lara,  Jose  Mariano,  257 
Bermudez,  Geronimo,  173 
Bernaldez,  Andres,  127 
Blanco,  Jose"  Maria,  367-368 
Blasco  Ibanez,  Vicente,  395 
Bocados  de  Oro.     See  Boniufn 
Bohl  de  Faber,  Cecilia.      See  Caba- 

llero 

Bohl  de  Faber,  Johan  Nikolas,  203 
Bohmer,  Eduard,  162 
Bonilla,  Alonso  de,  299 
Bonium,  63,  73 
Boscan   Almogaver,  Juan,    136-141, 

'43 

Bouterwek,  Friedrich,  289 
Braulius,  St.,  10 

Breton  de  los  Herreros,  Manuel,  374 
Burke,  Edmund,  124 
Byron,  Lord,  230,  313,  370 

CABALLERO,  Fernan,  380-381,  389 
Cabanyes,  Manuel  de,  372 


Cabo  roto,  Versos  de,  228,  268 
Caceres  y  Espinosa,  Pedro  de,  153 
Cadalso  y  Vazquez,  Jose  de,  355 
Calanson,  Guirauld  de,  36 
Calderon  de  la  Barca  Henao  de  la 

Barreda  y  Riano,  Pedro,  85,  136, 

225,  250,  256,  261,  276,  317-332 
Camoes,  Luis  de,  115,  177,  203,  270 
Campoamor  y  Campoosorio,  Ramon 

de,  383-386 

Camus,  Jean-Pierre,  289 
Cancioneiro  Portuguez  da   Vaticana, 

30,  71 

Cancionero  de  Baena,  30,  33,  96-98 
Cancionero  de  bur  las,  109,  112,  124 
Cancionero  de  Linares,  15 
Cancionero  de  Lope  de  Stunigat  34 
Cancionero  General,  109 
Cancionero  Musical,  119,  122,  131 
Canizares,  Jose  de,  345 
Cano,  Alonso,  276 
Cano,  Melchor,  200 
Cantilenas,  24-25 
Canzoniere  Colocci-Brancufi,  123 
Carlos  Quinto,  142,  149 
Caro,  Rodrigo,  249 
Carrillo,  Alonso,  65,  114 
Carrillo  y  Sotomayor,  Luis  de,  28^-* 

284 

Carvajal,  34,  no. 
Carvajal,  Miguel  de,  165,  172 
Casas,  Bartolome"  de  las,  156 
Cascales,  Francisco  de,  291,  293 
Castellanos,  Juan  de,  192 
Castellvi,  Francisco  de,  118 
Castilla,  Crdnica  de,  103 
Castilla,  Francisco  de,  153 
Castillejo,  Cristobal  de,  151-152,  165 
Castillo  Solorzano,  Alonso  de,  338 
Castro,  Adolfo  de,  299 
Castro  y  Bellvis,  Guillen  de,  305-306 
Cecchi,  Giovanni  Maria,  168 
Celestina,  107,  120,  125-126 
Centon  Epistolario,  272 


INDEX 


415 


Cepeda  y  Guzman,  Carlos,  320 
Cervantes  de  Salazar,  Francisco,  154 
Cervantes  Saavedra,  Miguel  de,  180, 

215-241,  249,  253,  267,  268,  276, 

278,  289,  350 
Cespedes    y    Meneses,    Gonzalo   de, 

338 

Cetina,  Gutierre  de,  148-149 
Chaves,  Cristobal  de,  235 
Chivalresque  novels,  157-158 
Churton,  Edward,  178,  281,  282-283, 

286,  290,  319-320 
Cid,  Crdnica  dd,  103 
Cid,  Poema  del,  24,  25,  40,  46-51 
Cienfuegos.      See  Alvarez  de    Cien- 

fuegos 

Civillar,  Pedro  de,  118 
Claramonte  y  Corroy,  Andres,  309 
Claude,  Bishop,  10 
Clavijo.     See  Gonzalez  de  Clavijo 
Clavijo  y  Fajardo,  Jose,  360 
Cobos,  El  Padre,  377 
Cobos,  Francisco  de  los,  179 
Coloma,  Luis,  394 
Columbarius,  Julius,  251 
Columbus,  Christopher,  12,  127-128 
Columella,    Lucius  Junius    Modera- 

tus,  8 

Concepcion,  Juan  de  la,  346 
Conceptismo,  299-300 
Contreras,  Juana  de,  129 
Cordoba,  Martin  de,  68 
Cordoba,  Sebastian  de,  207 
Corneille,  Pierre,  306,  345 
Corneille,  Thomas,  313,  335 
Cornu,  Professor,  86 
Coronado,  Carolina,  375 
Coronel,  Pablo,  130 
Corral,  Pedro  de,  93 
Corte  Real,  Jeronimo,  203 
Cortes,  Hernan,  157 
Cota  de  Maguaque,  Rodrigo  de,  HO, 

I20-I2I 

Cotarelo  y  Mori,  Emilio,  122,  309,  398 


Covarrubias  y   Horozco,    Sebastian, 

344 

Croce,  Benedetto,  126 
Crotaidn,  El,  303 

Cruz,  San  Juan  de  la,  182,  198-200 
Cruz  y  Cano,  Ramon  de  la,  360-361 
Cubillo  de  Aragon,  Alvaro,  335 
Cuello,  Antonio,  335 
CuestiSn  de  Amor,  126-127 
Cueva  de  la  Garoza,  Juan  de  la,  171- 

173 

Culteranismo,  283-285 
Cunninghame  Graham,  Mrs.,  193 

DAM  ASUS,  St.,  8-9 

Danza  de  la  Muerte,  87-88 

Dascanio,  Jusquin,  131 

Davidson,  Mr.  John,  70 

Debate  entre  el  Agiiay  el  Vino,  55 

Dechepare,  Bernard,  3 

Defoe,  Daniel,  228 

Diamante,  Juan  Bautista,  345 

Diario   de  los   Literates  de  Espafia, 

348 

Diaz  del  Castillo,  Bernal,  157 
Diaz  Gamez,  Gutierre,  105,  106,  347 
Diaz  Tanco  de  Fregenal,  Vasco,  164 
Diez  Mandamientos,  62 
Diniz,  King  of  Portugal,  28,  38 
Disputa  del  Almay  el  Cuerpo,  55 
Dobson,  Mr.  Austin,  15,  251 
Doce  Sabios,  Libra  de  los,  63 
Dominicus  Gundisalvi,  19 
Donoso  Cortes,  Juan,  382 
D'Ouville,  Antoine  Le   Metel,  263, 

332 

Dryden,  John,  192,  264,  332 
Ducas,  Demetrio,  130 
Duhalde,  Louis,  2 
Duran,  Agustin,  93,  264 

ECHEGARAY,  JoSC,  376,  395 

Encina,  Juan  del,  in,  121-123,  I3°> 
135 


4i6 


INDEX 


Enrique  IV.,  Cr6nica  de,  117 
Enriquez  del  Castillo,  Diego,  117 
Enriquez  Gomez,  Antonio,  338 
Ercilla  y  Zufriga,  Alonso  de,  3,  184, 

190-192 

Ertnitaflo,  Revelacion  de  un,  88 
Escobar,  Juan  de,  34 
Escobar,  Luis  de,  154 
Escriba,  Comendador  de,  319 
Espinosa,  Pedro  de,  189,  270,  279 
Espinosa  Medrano,  Juan  de,  291 
Espronceda,  Jos£  de,  368-372 
Esquilache,   Principe  de   (Francisco 

de  Borja),  299 
Este"banez    Calder6n,   Serafin,    379- 

38o 
Estebanillo  Gonzdles,   Vida  y  Hechos 

de,  338 

Eugenius,  St.,  10 
Eulogius,  St.,  1 8 
Eximenis,  Francisco,  107 


FADRIQUE,  the  Infante,  72,  78 

Fanshawe,  Richard,  314 

Faria  y  Sousa,  Manuel,  185,  288- 
289 

Farinelli,  M.  Arturo,  265,  312 

Feijoo  y  Montenegro,  Benito  Ger6- 
ninio,  349 

Ferdinand,  St.,  35,  62,  63 

Ferndn  Gonzalez,  Poema  de,  35 

Fernandez,  Lucas,  122 

Fernandez  de  Andrado,  Pedro,  299 

Fernandez  de  Avellaneda,  Alonso, 
238-240,  350 

Fernandez  de  Moratm,  Leandro,  361— 
362 

Fernandez  de  Moratin,  Nicolas  Mar- 
tin, 354 

Fernandez  de  Oviedo  y  Vald£s,  Gon- 
zalez, 156 

Fernandez  de  Palencia,  Alfonso,  117, 


Fernandez  de  Toledo,  Garci,  68 
Fernandez  de  Villegas,   Pedro,   118, 

130 
Fernandez-Guerra  y  Orbe,  Aureliano, 

24,  172,  299 

Fernandez  Vallejo,  Felipe,  44 
Ferreira,  Antonio,  173 
Fernis,  Pero,  97 
Figueroa,  Francisco  de,  187 
FitzGerald,   Edward,  323,  324,  325, 

326,  331,  332 
Flamini,  Professor,  139 
Flaubert,  Gustave,  313 
Florisando,  157 
Florisel  de  Niquea,  106,  157 
Forner,  Juan  Pablo,  357 
Foulche"-Delbosc,   M.   R.,    120,   193, 

210 

French  influence,  35-42 
Frere,  John  Hookham,  59 
Froude,  James  Anthony,  196-197 
Fuentes,  Alonso  de,  33,  65 
Fuero  fuzgo,  62 
Furtado  de  Mendoza,  Diego,  28 


GALLEGO,  Juan  Nicasio,  365 

Gallinero,  Manuel,  348 

Galvez  de  Montalvo,  Luis,  207,  216 

Garay,  Blasco  de,  171 

Garay  de  Monglave,  Fra^ois  Eugene, 

2 

Garcia  Arrieta,  Agustin,  237 
Garcia  Asensio,  Miguel,  356 
Garcia  de  la  Huerta  y  Munoz,  Vicente 

Antonio,  355-356 
Garcia  de  Santa  Maria,  Alvar,  102, 

1 08 

Garcia  Gutierrez,  Antonio,  374 
Gareth,  Benedetto,  131 
Garnett,  Dr.  Richard,  344 
Gatos,  Libra  de  las,  96 
Gautier  de  Coinci,  60,  6 1 
Gayangos,  Pascual  de,  24,  83 


INDEX 


417 


Gentil,  Bertomeu,  131 
Geraldino,  Alessandro,  129 
Geraldino,  Antonio,  129 
Giancarli,  Gigio  Arthenio,  168 
Gibson,  James  Young,  222,  223,  224, 

253,  278,  304 
Girard  d' Amiens,  41 
Giron,  Diego,  176,  179 
Goethe,  Johan  Wolfgang  von,  221, 

230,  323 

Goizcueta,  Jose  Maria,  2 
G6mara.     See  Lopez  de  Gomara 
G6mez,  26,  74 
Gomez,  Alvar,  118,  131 
Gomez,  Ambrosio,  58 
Gomez,  Pero,  65,  74 
Gomez    de    Avellaneda,    Gertrudis, 

374-375 

Gomez  de  Cibdareal,  Fernan,  272 
Gomez  de  Quevedo  y  Villegas,  Fran- 
cisco, 96,  183,  184,  185,  1 86,  187, 
228,  270,  277,  291,  300-305,  308, 

345 

Gongora.     See  Argote  y  Gongora 
Gonzalez,  Diego  Tadeo,  359 
Gonzalez  de  Avila,  Gil,  272 
Gonzalez  de  Clavijo,  Ruy,  105 
Gonzalez  de  Mendoza,  Pedro,  28 
Gonzalez  Llanos,  Rafael,  24 
Gosse,  Mr.  Edmund,  15, 231, 344,  387 
Gower,  John  (the  first  English  author 

translated  into  Castilian),  98 
Gracian,  Baltasar,  338-340 
Gran  Cvnquit-ta  de  Ultramar,  72 
Granada,  Luis  de,  200-202 
Grant  Duff,  Sir  M.  E.,  33-8 
Grillparzer,  Franz,  265 
Grosseteste,  Robert,  54 
Guarda,  Estevam  del,  30 
Guerra  y  Ribera,  Manuel  de,  327 
Guevara,  119 

Guevara,  Antonio  de,  154-156 
Guevara,  Luis.    See  Velez  Guevara 
Guillen  de  Segovia,  Pedro,  116 


HADRIAN,  5,  6 

Hammen,  Lorenzo  van  der,  303 

Hardy,  Alexandra,  263 

Haro,  Conde  de,  179 

Haro,  Luis  de,  152 

Hartzenbusch,  Juan  Eugenic,  96,  174, 

374 

Hebreo,  Le6n.     See  Abarbanel 
Hellowes,  Edward,  155 
Henley,  Mr.  William  Ernest,  15 
Henricus  Seynensis,  19 
Herbert,  George,  162 
Heredia,  Jose*  Maria,  157 
Hernandez,  Alonso,  132 
Herrera,  Fernando,   138,    146,    149, 

176-180,  281,  282 
Hervas  y  Cobo  de  la  Torre,  Jose" 

Gerardo  de,  348-349 
Hervas  y  Panduro,  Lorenzo,  362 
Hoces  y  Cordoba,  Gonzalo  de,  281 
Holland,  Lord,  254,  256,  265 
Hosius,  9 

Hiibner,  Baron  Emil,  8 
Huete,  Jaime  de,  165 
Hurtado,  Luis,  124,  165 
Hurtado  de  Mendoza,  Antonio,  314 
Hurtado  de   Mendoza,   Diego,  139, 

148,  150-151,  189,  208-210,  235 
Hussain  ibn  Ishak,  63,  73 
Huysmans,  M.  Joris-Karl,  197 
Hyginus,  Gaius  Julius,  4 


IBN  HAZM,  12,  18 
Icazbalceta,  Joaquin  Garcia,  190 
Iglesias  de  la  Casa,  Jose,  359 
Imperial,  Francisco,  97-98,  137 
Iniguez  de  Medrano,  Julio,  233 
Iranzoy  Crdnica  del  Condestable Miguel 

Lucas,  117,  167 
Iriarte  y  Oropesa,  Tomas  de,  3,  268, 

356-357 

Isaac  the  Martyr,  1 8 
Isidore,  St.,  10 


INDEX 


Isidore  Pacensis,  II 

Isla,  Francisco  Jose1  de,  351-354 


y  AGUILAR,  Juan  de,  288, 
298,  307 

Jimenez  de  Cisneros,  Francisco,  130 
Jimenez  de  Rada,  Rodrigo,  62,  67,  68 
Jimenez  Paton,  Bartolome,  285,  295 
Johnson,  Samuel,  124,  138 
Jose,  Poema  de.     See  Yusuf 
Josephus,  150 
Jove-Llanos,  Caspar  Melchor  de,  357- 

358 

Juan  II.,  Cr6nica  de,  100-101 
Juan  Manuel,  16,  80-85 
Judah  ben  Samuel  the  Levite,  12,  14, 

17,  43 

Juglares,  26—31 
Juvencus,  Vettius  Aquilinus,  8 

Kabbala,  the,  13 

Kalilah  and  Dimnah,  65,  71,  78 

Killigrew,  Thomas,  332 

LAFAYETTE,  Madame  de,  269 
Lamberto,  Alfonso,  239 
Landor,  Walter  Savage,  228 
Larra,  Mariano  Jose  de,  96,  97,  378- 

379 

Latini,  Brunetto,  65 
Latrocinius,  9 

Lazarillo  de  Tormes,  80,  158-160 
Ledesma,  Francisco,  166 
Ledesma  Buitrago,  Alonso  de,  299 
Leloaren  Canlua,  1-2 
Lena.     See  Rodriguez  de  Lena 
Leon,  Luis  Ponce  de,  180-184,  I9-n 

195 

Le6n  y  Mansilla,  Jose,  346 
Leonardo  de  Albion,  Gabriel,  277 
Leonardo  de  Argensola,  Bartolome, 

276-279 
Leonardo    de   Argensola,   Lupercio, 

175-1/6,  276-278 


Lesage,  42,  85,  269,  307,  354 

Lessing,  Gotthold  Ephraim,  350,  351 

L'Estrange,  Roger,  304 

Lewes,  George  Henry,  265 

Licinianus,  10  • 

Lidforss,  Professor,  43 

Lista,  Alberto,  169,  368 

Lisuarte,  157,  158 

Llaguno  y  Amirola,  Eugenio,  347 

Lo  Frasso,  Antonio,  207 

Loaysa,  Jofre  de,  68 

Lobeira,  Joham,  123,  153 

Lobo,  Eugenio  Gerardo,  346 

Lockhart,  James  Gibson,  93 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  115, 

328 

Lope  de  Moros,  55,  57 
Lope  de  Vega.     See  Vega  Carpio 
Lopez    de    Aguilar    Coutino.       See 

Columbarius 

Lopez  de  Ayala,  Adelardo,  375-376 
L6pez  de  Ayala,  Pero,  3,  74,  88-92 
Lopez  de  Cartagena,  Diego,  130 
Lopez  de  Corelas,  Alonso,  1 54 
Lopez  de  Gomara,  Francisco,  157 
Lopez    de   Sedano,  Jose1,    175,    187, 

268 

Lopez  de  Toledo,  Diego,  130 
Lopez   de    Ubeda,   Francisco.      See 

Perez,  Andres 
Lopez  de  Ubeda,  Juan,  271 
Lopez  de  Vicuna,  Juan,  280-281 
Lopez  de  Villalobos,  Francisco,  130, 

154 

Lorenzana  y  Buitron,  Francisco  An- 
tonio, II 

Lorenzo  Segura  de  Astorga,  Juan,  63 

Loyola,  St.  Ignacio,  3,  193 

Lucan,  4,  8 

Lucena,  Juan  de,  107,  roS 

Lujan  de  Sayavedra,  Maleo.  See 
Marti 

Lull,  Ram6n,  73,  82 

Luna,  Alvaro  de,  28 


INDEX 


419 


Luna,   Cronica   de  Alvaro  de,    102- 

103 
Luzan     Claramunt     de     Suelves     y 

Gurrea,  Ignacio,  346-348 


M'CARTHY,    Denis    Florence,   328- 

329 

MacColl,  Mr.  Norman,  320 
Macfas,  96-97,  119 
Magos,  Misterio  de  los  Reyes,  24,  35, 

43-46 

Mahomet-el-Xartosse,  20 
Maimonides,  12-14 
Mainez,  Ramon  Leon,  239 
Mairet,  Jean,  263 
Malara,  Juan  de,  170-171,  176 
Maldonado,  L6pez,  219,  243 
Malon  de  Chaide,  Pedro,  202 
Manrique,  Gomez,  112-114,  254 
Manrique,  Jorge,  114-116,  1 19,  227 
Maragall,  Joan,  397 
Marcabrii,  30 

March,  Auzias,  12,  136,  145 
Marche,  Olivier  de  la,  149 
Marcus  Aurelius,  5 
Maria  de  Jesus  de  Agreda,  Sor,  340 
Maria  del  Cielo,  Sor,  346 
Maria  Egipciacqua,    Vida  de  Santa, 

38,54 

Mariana,  Juan  de,  63,  272-274,  276 
Marineo,  Lucio,  129 
Marti,  Juan,  267 
Martial,  5,  6 
Martin  of  Dumi,  St.,  10 
Martinez,  Fernan,  67 
Martinez  de  la  Rosa,  Francisco,  365- 

366 

Martinez  de  Medina,  Gonzalo,  98 
Martinez  de  Toledo,  Alfonso,  107 
Martinez  Salafranca,  Tuan,  348 
Martyr,  Peter,  128 
Matos  Fragoso,  Juan  de,  220,  335 
Mayans  y  Siscar,  Gregorio,  350,  352 


Medina,  Francisco,  179 

Medrano,  Lucia,  129 

Mela,  Pomponius,  8 

Melendez  Valdes,  Juan,  358-359 

Melo,  Francisco  Manuel  de,  336 

Mena,  Juan  de,  100-102 

Mendoza,  friigo  de,  118 

Menendez  Pidal,  Ramon,  32,  51,  398 

Menendez  y  Pelayo,  Marcelino,  37, 

38,  117,   179,  239,  288,  311,  336, 

345.  372,  397-39* 
Meres,  Francis,  201 
Merimee,  Ernest,  359 
Mesonero  Romanos,  Ramon  de,  380 
Mexia,  Hernan,  1 12 
Mexia,  Pedro,  156 
Michaelis  de  Vasconcellos,  Mme.,  86, 

148 
Mila  y  Fontanals,  Manuel,   35,    38, 

372 

Milton,  John,  346,  355 
Mingo  Revulgo,  Coplas  de,  in 
Mira  de  Amescua,  Antonio,  307,  314 
Miranda,  Luis  de,  169 
Moliere,  42,  258,  313,  334,  345,  361 
Molina,  Argote  de,  81,  101 
Molinos,  Miguel  de,  341-342 
Moncada,  Francisco  de,  336 
Mondejar,  Marques  de,  343 
Montalban.    See  PeVez  de  Montalban 
Montalvo.    See  Ord6nez  de  Montalvo 
Montemor,  Jorge,  115,  203-206 
Montesino,  Ambrosio,  118 
Monti,  Giulio,  354 
Montiano  y  Luyando,  Agustin,  344 
Montoro,  Anton  de,  in,  112 
Moraes,  Francisco  de,  124 
Morales,  Ambrosio  de,  208 
Moratin.     See  Fernandez  de  Moratfn 
Morel-Fatio,  M.  Alfred,  55,  96,  158, 

378 
Moreto  y  Cavana,  Agustin,  261,  333- 

335 
Morley,  Mr.  John,  340 


420 


INDEX 


Mosquerade  Figueroa,  Cristobal,  179, 

226 

Muhammad  Rabadan,  20 
Munday,  Anthony,  158 
Mufion,  Sancho,  126 
Muntaner,  Ramon,  336 

NAHARRO,  Pedro,  169,  212 
Nahman,  Moses  ben,  13-14 
Najera,  Esteban  de,  34,  152,  270 
Nasarre  y  Ferruz,  Bias  Antonio,  350 
Navagiero,  Andrea,  136,  137 
Navarro,  Miguel,  348 
Nebrija,  Antonio  de,  93,  130 
Nebrija,  Francisca  de,  129 
Nieremberg,  Juan  Eusebio,  340 
Nifo,  Francisco  Mariano,  319 
North,  Thomas,  155 
Nucio,  Martin,  34,  270 
Nunez,  Hernan,  130,  154,  171 
Nunez  de  Arce,  Caspar,  395-396 
Nunez  de  Villaizan,  Juan,  91 

OBREG6N,  Antonio,  131 

Ocampo,  Florian  de,  156 

Ocana,  Francisco  de,  271 

Ochoa,  Juan,  395 

Odo  of  Cheriton,  96 

Olid,  Juan  de,  117 

Oliva.     See  Perez  de  Oliva 

Oiler  y  Moragas,  Narcis,  395 

Omerique,  Hugo  de,  343 

Ona,  Pedro  de,  192 

Ordonez  de  Montalvo,  Garcia,  123- 

124 

Ormsby,  John,  50 
Orosius,  Paulus,  9-10 
Ortiz,  Agustin,  165 
Oudin,  Cesar,  233 
Oviedo.     See  Fernandez  de  Oviedo 

PACHECO,  Francisco,  170,  179 

Padilla,  Juan  de,  1 19 

Padilla,  Pedro  de,  216,  219,  243 


Paez  de  Ribera,  157 

Paez  de  Ribera,  Ruy,  98 

Palacio  Valdes,  Armando,  392-393 

I'alacios     Rubios,    Juan    Lopez    de 

Vivero,  154 
Palau,  Bartolome,  172 
Palencia.     See  Fernandez  de  Palencia 
Palmtrin  de  Inglaterra,  1 58 
Palmerin  de  Oliva,  1 58 
Panadera,  Capias  de  la,  101 
Paravicino     y    Arteaga,     Hortensio 

Felix,  297,  319 

Pardo  Bazan,  Emilia,  22,  393-394 
Paredes,  Alfonso  de,  65 
Paris,  M.  Gaston,  72 
Patmore,  Coventry,  200 
Paulus  Alvarus  Cordubiensis,  17,  18 
Pellicer,  Casiano,  318 
Pellicer  de  Salas  y  Tobar,  Jose,  65, 

95,  291,  308 
Per  Abbat,  47 

Peralta  Barnuevo,  Pedro  de,  345 
Pereda,  Jose  Maria  de,  389-390 
Pe"rez,  Alonso,  206 
Pe"rez,  Andres,  228,  239,  268 
PeVez,  Antonio,  271-272 
Perez,  Suero,  68 
Pe"rez  de  Guzman,  Fernan,  103-104, 

142 

Perez  de  Hita,  Gines,  269-270 
P6rez  de  Montalban,  Juan,  307-308 
Perez  de  Oliva,  Fernando,  4,  154 
Perez  Galdos,  Benito,  390-391 
Peseux-Richard,  M.  H.,  384,  385 
Peter  the  Venerable,  21 
Petrus  Alphonsus,  16,  78 
Phillips,  Mr.  Henry,  183 
Picaud,  Aimeric,  36 
Pitillas,  Jorge.     See  Hervas  y  Cobo 

de  la  Torre 

Platir,  Crdnica  del  muy  valiente,  158 
Pleito  del  Manto,  112,  121 
Polindo,  158 
Polo,  Caspar  Gil,  206 


INDEX 


421 


Ponce,  Bartolome,  207 

Ponte,  Pero  da,  38 

Poridat  de  las  Poridades,  63 

Prete  Jacopin.     See  Haro,  Conde  de 

Pftmaleon,  158 

Priscillian,  9 

Proverbs,  Spanish,  171 

Provincial,  Capias  del,  IIO,  112,  117 

Prudentius,  Clemens  Aurelius,  6,  9 

Prudentius  Galindus,  10 

Puig,  Leopoldo  Geronimo,  348 

Pulgar,  Hernando  del,  in,  127 

Puymaigre,  Comte  de,  34,  58 

Querellas,  Libra  de,  65 
Quevedo.     See  G6mez  de  Quevedo 
Quintana,  Manuel  Jose,  364-365 
Quintilian,  5,  6 

RACINE,  Jean,  345 

Raimundo,  19 

Ramirez  de  Prado,  Lorenzo,  319 

Ramos  del  Manzano,  Francisco,  343 

Ranieri,  Antonio  Francesco,  168 

Rasis,  91 

Rebolledo,  Conde  de,  299 

Rernon,  Alonso,  310 

Rennert,  Professor,  206 

Resende,  Garcia  de,  205 

Revilla,  Manuel  de  la,  312,  376 

Rey  de  Artieda,  Andres,  173-174 

Reyes,  Matias  de  los,  309 

Reyes,  Pedro  de  los,  193 

Rhua,  Pedro  de,  155 

Ribas  y  Canfranc,  Jos£  Ibero,  250 

Rioja,  Francisco  de,  299 

Rivas,  Duque  de,  366-367 

Rivers,  Lord,  73 

Roca  y  Serna,  Ambrosio,  297 

Rodrigo,  Cantar  de,  51-53 

Rodriguez  de   la  Camara,  Juan,  96, 

97,  "9 
Rodriguez  de  Lena,  Pero,  105 


Rodriguez    de    Silva    y    Velazquez, 

Diego,  337-338 
Rodriguez  Rubi,  Tomas,  374 
Rogel  de  Grecia,  158 
Rojas,  Agustin  de,  211 
Rojas,  Fernando  de,  125-126 
Rojas  Zorrilla,  Francisco  de,  95,  276, 

307,  325,  333 

Romancero  General,  33,  93,  270 
Romances,  Spanish,  32-34 
Romero  de  Cepeda,  Joaquin,  175 
Roswitha,  11 
Rotrou,  Jean,  263 
Rowland,  David,  159-160 
Rueda,  Lope  de,  166-169,  254,  261 
Rufo  Gutierrez,  Juan,  189-190,  216 
Ruiz,  Jacobo,  67 
Ruiz,  Juan,  30,  76-80,  84,  107 
Ruiz  de  Alarcon  y  Mendoza,   Juan, 

95.  239,  256,  276,  315-317 

SA  DE  MIRANDA,  Francisco  de,  148 
Saavedra  Fajardo,  Diego  de,  336 
Salas  Barbadillo,  Alonso  de,  270 
Salazar  Mardones,  Cristobal  de,  291 
Salazar  y  Hontiveros,  Jose  de,  345 
Salazar  y  Torres,   Agustin  de,  291- 

298 

Salcedo  Coronel,  Garcia  de,  291 
Salom6n,  Proverbios  en  Rimo  de,  75» 

91 

Samaniego,  Felix  Maria  de,  356 
San  Juan,  Marques  de,  345 
Sanchez,  Clemente,  96 
Sanchez,  Francisco,  179 
Sanchez,  Miguel,  184 
Sanchez,  Tomas  Antonio,  48,  58 
Sanchez  de  Badajoz,  Garci,  119 
Sanchez  de  Tovar,  Fernan,  91 
Sanchez  Talavera,  Ferrant,  91,  98 
Sancho  IV.,  72-73 
Sannazaro,  Jacopo,  145 
Santillana,  Marques  de,   15,  28,  33, 
58,  79,  98-100,  119,  137 


422 


INDEX 


Santisteban  y  Osorio,  Diego,  192 

Sarmiento,  Martin,  ill,  349 

Sbarbi,  Jose  Maria,  171 

Scarron,  Paul,  42,  269 

Schack,  Adolf  Friedrich  von,  14,  323 

Schopenhauer,  Arthur,  338 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  270,  366 

Scudery,  Mile,  de,  269 

Secchi,  Niccolo,  168 

Sedeno,  Juan,  1 26 

Selgas  y  Carrasco,  Jose,  377 

Sem  Tob,  16,  87,  113 

Sempere,  Hieronym,  124 

Seneca,  the  Elder,  4 

Seneca,    the   Younger,  4,  8,  IO,  73> 

176 

Sepulveda,  Lorenzo,  33 
Shakespeare,  William,  205 
Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  46,  221,  321- 

322 

Sidney,  Philip,  143,  205 
Siete  Partidas,  Las,  66-67 
Silva,  Feliciano  de,  126,  157,  158 
Silvestre,  Gregorio,  115,  153 
Sisebut,  7 
Solis  y    Riradeneira,    Antonio    de, 

335-33° 
Sordello,  35 
Sorel,  Charles,  42,  269 
Spera-in-Deo,  21 
Stanley,  Thomas,  140,  287 
Stuniga,  Lope  de,  34,  109 
Suarez  de  Figueroa,  Cristobal,  315 


TAMAYO  Y  BAUS,  Manuel,  376-377 

Tansillo,  Luigi,  132,  144 

Tapia,  Juan  de,  109 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  198 

Tellez,  Gabriel     See  Tirso  de  Molina 

Teresa,  Santa,  182,  193-198,  301 

Tesoro,  the,  65,  72 

Texeda,  Jeronimo  de,  206 

Theodolphus,  Bishop,  10 


Thylesius,  Antonius,  144 

Ticknor,    George,    24,    65,    89,    118, 

122,  137,  140,  154,  206,  242,  244, 

247,  249,  258,  259,  274,  285,  325, 

348 

Timoneda,  Juan  de,  170 
Tirso  de  Molina,  174,  256,  261,  263, 

267,  308-314,  3'5 
Todi,  Jacopone  da,  30,  118 
Torre,  Alfonso  de  la,  108 
Torre,  Francisco  de  la,  184-187 
Torrellas,  Pero,  no,  112,  121 
Torres  Naharro,  Bartolome,  132-135, 

1 66,  1 68,  170,  254 
Torres  Ramila,  Pedro  de,  251 
Torres  y  Villarroel,  Diego  de,  346 
Trajan,  5 
Tribaldos  de  Toledo,  Luis,  187,  208, 

296 

Trovadores,  26-31 
Trueba,  Antonio,  389 
Turpin,  Archbishop,  2 
Tuy,  Lucas  de,  67 

URREA,  Jeronimo  de,  143 
Urrea,  Pedro  Manuel  de,  120 

VALBUENA,  Antonio  de,  391 

Valdes,  Juan  de,  126-127,  144,  161- 
164,  3°3 

Valdivielso,  Jose  de,  271 

Valencia,  Pedro  de,  287,  288 

Valera  y  Alcala  Galiano,  Juan,  14, 
384,  386-389 

Valerius,  St.,  no 

Valladolid,  Juan  de,  109,  in 

Valmar,  Marques  de,  22 

Vanbrugh,  John,  333 

Vaqueiras,  Raimbaud  de,  30,  43 

Varchi,  Benedetto,  186 

Vazquez  de  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  Fran- 
cisco, 158 

Vega,  Alonso  de,  169 

Vega,  Bernardo  de  la,  227 


INDEX 


423 


Vega,  Garcilaso  de  la,  136,  138,  141- 

148,  178-179,  207 
Vega  Carpio,  Lope  Felix  de,  20,  97, 

J36,  !75>  !85,  189,  219,  225,  226, 

238,  239,  241-265,  270,  280,  350 
Velazquez.    See  Rodriguez  de  Silva  y 

Velazquez 
Velazquez  de  Velasco,  Luis  Jose,  69, 

185,  35» 
Velez  de  Guevara,  Luis,   269,   276, 

306-307 

Venegas  de  Henestrosa,  Luis,  115 
Verdaguer,  Jacinto,  397 
Vergara,  Francisco  de,  130 
Vergara,  Juan  de,  130 
Vicente,  Gil,  135 
Vidal,  Pere,  36 

Vidal  de  Besalu,  Ramon,  22,  29 
Vidal  de  Noya,  Francisco,  129,  130 
Vierge  Maria,    Trobes  en  lahors  de 

la,  118 

Villalobos.     See  Lopez  de  Villalobos 
Villalon,  Cristobal  de,  303 
Villamediana,  Conde  de,  276 
Villapando,  Juan  de,  100 
Villasandino.     See  Alvarez  de  Villa- 

sandino 

Villegas,  Antonio  de,  152-153,  206 
Villegas,  Esteban   Manuel  de,  298- 

299 


Villegas,  Jeronimo,  130 
Villena,  Enrique  de,  94-96 
Villena,  Marques  de,  343-344 
Virues,  Cristobal  de,   170,  174-175, 

254,  261 

Vives,  Luis,  129,  182 
Voiture,  Vincent  de,  255 
Voltaire,  191,  269,  315,  354 

WEY,  William,  36 
Wiflfen,  Benjamin  Barren,  163 
Wiffen,  Jeremiah  Holmes,  146 
Wycherley,  William,  332 

XAVIER,  St.  Francisco,  3,  193 

YANEZ,  Rodrigo,  86 

Yanez  y  Ribera,  Ger6nimo  de  Alcala. 

338 

Young,  Bartholomew,  299 
Yusuf,  Poema  de,  20,  75 

ZAMORA,  Alfonso  de,  130 
Zamora,  Egidio  de,  68 
Zapata,  Luis  de,  190 
Zorrilla,  Jose,  313,  372-374 
Zumarraga,  Juan  de,  190 
Zuniga,  Francesillo  de,  155 
Zurita,  Jeronimo,  207-208 


(18) 


THE   END 


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't 


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